The book starts with a brief introduction on the day of the shooting. Malala describes the journey on the bus to get home from school and starts to describe the shooting. She mentions "[...] a heavenly kingdom of mountains, gushing waterfalls and crystal-clear lakes." Malala explains that her father was very poor when she was born and they lived in a two room shack. Malala recalls that her father always wanted to open a school. Throughout the book, Ziauddin opened several schools even if it meant that he was often in trouble with money and the officials ridiculed him and laughed at him. Malala sounds like a very bright and competitive girl. She says that by the age of 7 she was the top student. An Islamic scholar and enforcer of the law (mufti) called Ghullamulah started to threaten Ziauddin because he was running a school for girls and Ghullamulah said that these girls should be wearing veils and should be kept inside. Ghullamulah gathered some other muftis and Taliban and came to Ziauddin's house to threaten him and to make him close the girls school. Malala's father refused to close the school.