The bravest girl in the world.

• Position: Malala Yousafzai - Cover story

Last year, the Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head for daring to speak about the need for girls' education in Pakistan. She survived--and she's still talking.

Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl, was just 11 years old when she became famous in her native Pakistan for speaking out for the rights of girls.

Malala lived in Pakistan's Swat Valley, a beautiful region that was once popular with tourists. But in 2007, the Taliban arrived in Swat from neighboring Afghanistan, where they had been battling U.S. troops since 2001. The Taliban imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law on the region, banning music, dance, and many personal freedoms, including schooling for girls. They also forbade women from being in public without their husbands or fathers. The Taliban used violence-including public beatings, torture, and beheadings--to spread fear and enforce their edicts.

Malala and her father resisted the Taliban's reign of terror. They spoke out, insisting on the right of every girl to attend school. Their defiance won them many admirers--and many enemies.

In 2009, Pakistan's army drove the Taliban out of the region, but not completely. People continued to live in fear. In 2012, the Taliban tried to kill Malala, and failed. That attack has made her more famous, enabling her to spread her message to the entire world.

Now 16, Malala has written a book about her experience. In this excerpt from the recently published I Am Malala, she describes the day that forever changed her life.

The day when everything changed was Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. It wasn't the best of days to start with, as it was the middle of school exams, though as a bookish girl I didn't mind them as much as some of my classmates.

That morning we arrived in the narrow mud lane off Haji Baba Road in our usual procession of brightly painted rickshaws sputtering diesel fumes, each one crammed with five or six girls. Since the time of the Taliban our school has had no sign and the brass door in a white wall across from the woodcutter's yard gives no hint of what lies beyond.

For us girls that doorway was like a magical entrance to our own special world. As we skipped through, we cast off our headscarves like winds puffing away clouds to make way for the sun, then ran helter-skelter up the steps.

The school was founded by my father before I was born, and on the wall above us KHUSHAL SCHOOL was painted proudly in red and white letters. We went to school six mornings a week. As a 15-year-old in Year 9, my classes were spent chanting chemical equations or studying Urdu grammar; writing stories in English with morals like "Haste makes waste" or drawing diagrams of blood circulation--most of my classmates wanted to be doctors. It's hard to imagine that anyone would see that as a threat. Yet outside the door to the school lay not only the noise and craziness of Mingora, the main city of Swat, but also those like the Taliban who think girls should not go to school.

The school was not far from my home and I used to walk, but since the start of last year I had been going with other girls in a rickshaw and coming home by bus. It was a journey of just five minutes. I liked the bus because I didn't get as sweaty as when I walked, and I could chat with my friends and gossip with Usman Ali, the driver, who we called Bhai Jan, or "Brother." He made us all laugh with his crazy stories.

I had started taking the bus because my mother was scared of me walking on my own. We had been getting threats all year. Some were in the newspapers, some were notes or messages passed on by people.

Imagining a Terrorist

My mother was worried about me, but the Taliban had never come for a girl and I was more concerned they would target my father, as he was always speaking out against them. His close friend and fellow campaigner, Zahid Khan, had been shot in the face in August on his way to prayers...