book review when you trap a tiger

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When you trap a tiger, common sense media reviewers.

Superb family tale of loss has mystery, folklore, sadness.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Representations and descriptions of Korean America

Positive themes of family, bravery, courage, and p

Lily is a fantastic half-White, half-Asian lead, a

The first couple of times Lily meets the magical t

A girl is called a "QAG" or "Quiet Asian Girl," wh

Educational Value

Representations and descriptions of Korean American family life ground the Korean folklore mystery. Korean foods like kimchi, rice cakes, and mandu (dumplings) are made, eaten. Characters often discuss Korean mythological creatures (e.g., magical tigers) and traditional stories. A few references to the history of Korean people being "a sad one" and "full of sad stories." A woman says, "Long, long ago, Japan and United States people do wrong things to our country." Some references to well-known Korean folklore and mythology.

Positive Messages

Positive themes of family, bravery, courage, and perseverance in face of mystery, uncertainty, and family loss. Strong messages of taking over your own story, of how to do deal with loss, grief, fear, sadness. Gives a voice to those who've been called "quiet," shy, and worse. Loss is a part of life but so are love, family, friends, history, and hope for the future.

Positive Role Models

Lily is a fantastic half-White, half-Asian lead, and her worldview is wonderfully presented, revealing her doubt, courage, and intelligence. Lily confronts many challenges, is incredibly resourceful and brave, and, in helping her grandmother, risks a great deal. Over her journey, Lily will cast off her sister Sam's stereotype of her as a "QAG" ("Quiet Asian Girl"), and she'll encourage everyone to tell their own story. Her grandmother is well liked in her community; everyone knows, respects her. She's a soft, warm presence but can also be stern, assertive. Sam is confident and out to do the right thing, even if she doesn't show it. She supports Lily when she's most in need. Lily's mother is a good, hard-working parent. The librarian is pleasant and encouraging, and Ricky is open to a fault, positively nerdy, and a good friend.

Violence & Scariness

The first couple of times Lily meets the magical tiger are a little tense (with one small jump scare) and could scare some younger viewers. A few references to a car crash in the rain that killed a father. A car almost hits a magical tiger in the road but swerves and misses it at the last second. A shadow monster forms into a tiger woman in a fairy tale. An older woman is made fun of by some boys while her granddaughter is present. The girl then puts mud in a cupcake and gives it to one of the boys; he eats some of it. A father yells "Shut up!" at his son in a grocery store. An older woman mentions how in the past, "Japan and United States do wrong things" to Korea.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A girl is called a "QAG" or "Quiet Asian Girl," which is a stereotype. The term is used throughout the novel.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Tae Keller's When You Trap a Tiger won the 2021 Newbery Medal. It's about an 8-year-old Korean American girl named Lily and her family. Having recently and suddenly moved away from California to be closer to her halmoni (grandmother), Lily must be brave and trap a tiger -- only this tiger is magical, and conventional traps might not work. Lily is an inquisitive, brave, and intrepid girl on a quest to uncover a mystery and save her family. The novel has fun with magical realism, Korean folklore, and the imagination of an awesome hero, and it also deals with death, family loss, and grief. There are a few tense moments with the magical tiger that might briefly scare younger readers, and a few references to a car crash that killed a father. A different father scarily yells "Shut up!" to his son at a grocery store. A girl is called a "QAG" ("Quiet Asian Girl") and ponders the stereotypical term throughout the book. An older woman mentions how "Japan and United States do wrong things" to Korea. The novel has positive themes of courage in the face of uncertainty, perseverance in the midst of despair, and personal and cultural integrity through loss and grief.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

Parents say (5)
Kids say (3)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Subtle LGBT themes

Wonderful, layered and fascinating story about culture, empathy, loss and love, what's the story.

In WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER, Lily and her big sister, Sam, leave California to go live with their halmoni (grandmother). The sisters had lives in California (especially 14-year-old Sam), and they aren't exactly excited that their mother made the decision without telling them. But the girls suspect that their mother isn't telling them everything about what's going on with Halmoni. Lily wants to get to the bottom of it, but Mom isn't budging, Sam doesn't want to help, and there seems to be a magical tiger that may or may not want to eat Halmoni, just like in the old Korean folktales Halmoni would tell them when they were much younger children. The only problem is, Lily is the only one who sees the tiger. With the help of a new friend, some luck, and perseverance, Lily is determined to trap this tiger once and for all. What's the worst that could happen?

Is It Any Good?

There's a kind of magic in this book that goes beyond the sum of its parts: a coming-of-age story; an #ownvoices narrative of loss, grief, and triumph; and a modern folktale all in one. When You Trap a Tiger has a strong girl lead who's brave, complex, and diligent, and a strong representation and depiction of Korean American home life, culture, and traditions. There's mystery, intrigue, and plenty of reasons to race through the pages. The writing is fast, genuine, and rich, and there are plenty of references to Korean and American folklore. By the end, it isn't merely a story of losing family, but a story about what happens when you keep the stories of others alive, stories of people, family, difficulty, success, tragedy, and the future. In a way, it's a kind of new folktale that merges old ideas with modern ones, blends Korean mythology with modern American folklore, and achieves a kind of beauty all its own. Subtle nods to Where the Wild Things Are , If You Give a Mouse a Cookie , and Goodnight Moon appear in Lily's remembering of Halmoni's Korean folklore stories, creating a kind of meta-narrative where this novel is doing what its story is about. When You Trap a Tiger shows how you can make new stories and new folklore your own. Be aware, though: It packs a serious emotional punch.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how When You Trap a Tiger explores grief and sadness. Each family member is shown dealing with them in different ways. How does Lily's journey differ from her sister Sam's or their mother's?

Why might Lily's older sister, Sam, have a complicated reason for calling her younger sister a "QAG," or "Quiet Asian Girl"? How does Lily's view of this term change over the course of her journey?

Do you think Lily and her family are the descendants of the people in Halmoni's stories? Do you think the magical tiger is real? Do these questions matter? Why, or why not?

Book Details

Author : Tae Keller
Genre : Family Life
Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Brothers and Sisters , Great Girl Role Models
Book type : Fiction
Publisher : Random House Books for Young Readers
Publication date : January 28, 2020
Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
Number of pages : 304
Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
Award : Newbery Medal and Honors
Last updated : September 27, 2021

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2020

New York Times Bestseller

IndieBound Bestseller

Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Winner

Newbery Medal Winner

WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER

by Tae Keller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 2020

Longing—for connection, for family, for a voice—roars to life with just a touch of magic.

A young girl bargaining for the health of her grandmother discovers both her family’s past and the strength of her own voice.

For many years, Lily’s Korean grandmother, Halmoni, has shared her Asian wisdom and healing powers with her predominantly White community. When Lily, her sister, Sam—both biracial, Korean and White—and their widowed mom move in with Halmoni to be close with her as she ages, Lily begins to see a magical tiger. What were previously bedtime stories become dangerously prophetic, as Lily begins to piece together fact from fiction. There is no need for prior knowledge of Korean folktales, although a traditional Korean myth propels the story forward. From the tiger, Lily learns that Halmoni has bottled up the hard stories of her past to keep sadness at bay. Lily makes a deal with the tiger to heal her grandmother by releasing those stories. What she comes to realize is that healing doesn’t mean health and that Halmoni is not the only one in need of the power of storytelling. Interesting supporting characters are fully developed but used sparingly to keep the focus on the simple yet suspenseful plot. Keller infuses this tale, which explores both the end of life and coming-of-age, with a sensitive examination of immigration issues and the complexity of home. It is at one and the same time completely American and thoroughly informed by Korean culture.

Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5247-1570-0

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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From the school for good and evil series , vol. 1.

by Soman Chainani ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2013

Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.

Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.

Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).

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ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013

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A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...

Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.

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The Reading Life
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Homeschooling

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Book review: when you trap a tiger by tae keller (2020).

Just like the 2018 Newbery medal winner, Merci Suarez Changes Gears , this is a mediocre and surface-level story about a young non-white girl and a beloved grandparent, only this time with a bit of a fantastical twist. Compared with the high standard set by Newbery winners of decades past, this one is largely unremarkable and forgettable. The writing is very commercial and conversational, with lots of tween-friendly dialogue and not much in the way of figurative language, other than a beaten-to-death tiger metaphor. It is impossible for me to accept that this book was the most distinctive of 2020, even given the very small number of new middle grade books I read last year.

As always, though, I can easily find all the "woke" elements that must have made this book so appealing to the committee. In the scene where Lily first visits the public library, the teen girl who works there (who later becomes the object of Lily's older sister's crush) tells her that she doubts they have any books on Korean folktales because "this town is pretty white." This makes sure to blame not the librarian who purchases the books, but the entire white population of the community for apparently excluding Lily's entire culture from the shelves. (I also don't buy that a public library doesn't have Korean folk tales. The folk tale sections of every library I've worked in have been robust and diverse regardless of the color of the majority of patrons' skin. If this specific library doesn't have them, the author needs a more nuanced explanation.)

A few pages later, Lily meets Ricky, an excitable middle schooler who doesn't have many friends and is awkward in social situations. Within two sentences, Ricky has been painted as sexist because he tells Lily he's "never met a girl who likes tigers before." Ricky is shown to be insensitive later in the book as well, when he mocks Lily's grandmother for her cultural customs. When he apologizes, he is not only portrayed as an idiot (he can't pronounce halmoni, even after being corrected) but he also actually uses the phrase "hostile environment." I'd hate to be a boy reading this story; with Ricky representing the male sex, he won't walk away feeling particularly good about being male. The talking tiger in the story also makes a comment about gender when Lily assumes she is a boy: "Typical. You hear one story about a male tiger and think we're all the same? Humans are the worst." Not the most uplifting message for the 8-to-12-year-old audience.

I also really felt uncomfortable with some of the story's messages. I didn't like the constant feeling that the reader was being led to reject old stories and to celebrate writing new ones to replace them, as it reminds me of the way libraries are starting to remove older titles for dubious reasons. I also really hated the idea that "sometimes people feel trapped in their own skin and they have to leave" as an explanation for why Ricky's mother (a stay-at-home mom) abandoned her family. Stay-at-home motherhood is not a trap, and I don't like being asked to empathize with someone for escaping it by basically neglecting her role as a mother entirely. I also felt that this book took a very bleak view on death, commenting that after someone dies, "the person you loved is gone" and not really leaving any room for Halmoni's suffering to have any meaning.

No comments:

Book Review

When you trap a tiger.

Beginning Readers , Drama , Fantasy

Readability Age Range

8 to 12 years old
Random House
2021 Newbury Medal winner; Winner of the Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry; Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature

Year Published

When young Lily, as well as her mom and sister, move in with her sick grandmother, Lily starts seeing things right out of her grandmother’s Korean folktale stories. In particular, she spots a huge magical tiger: a here-and-gone talking beast that wants to make a deal. If Lily can help the tiger find some once-stolen items, it portends Grandmother’s recovery. But should anyone make deals with magical tigers?

Plot Summary

Lily’s teenage sister, Sam, calls her a QAG : a stereotypical Quiet Asian Girl. And as much as Lily hates that her sister teases her with that acronym, she has to admit that the derogatory term kind of fits. You see, Lily’s always had that special ability to disappear, to be ignored or overlooked in a room full of people. She doesn’t make a fuss, she doesn’t draw people’s attention, she doesn’t even make friends all that easily. She stays quiet.

So, when Lily, Sam and their mother all pack up and move from California to their grandmother’s home in Sunbeam, Washington, Lily doesn’t say much. Sam complains openly. On the hour. But Lily takes things in stride. If nothing else, she’ll get to see her Halmoni , her Korean grandmother, and hear her stories once again. Halmoni weaves the most wonderful stories—some plucked from Korean folklore, others snatched out of imagination—that have always seemed magical and mysterious to Lily.

But when Lily and her family pull into Sunbeam—in a pouring torrential rain, no less—Lily sees a tiger. No, not just a tiger, this is a Tiger : a huge, obviously magical beast that no one else in the car can see. And the young girl starts to worry that either something is terribly wrong; or that perhaps the stress of leaving their home, after her father’s recent death, is making her just a little crazy.

When they all slosh wet and soggily into Halmoni’s house and get to see and hug the old beloved woman, though, Lily quickly realizes that something is terribly wrong. Her grandmother is obviously frail and sick. And it’s equally clear that they haven’t all arrived just for a visit.

Lily starts to piece things together after Halmoni tells her another broad and fanciful story. It’s a story about herself as a younger woman, and the power of stories … and of stories stolen . And when Lily is paid another visit by the now talking magical tiger, she realizes that her grandmother stole some forgotten stories long, long ago. The tiger suggests that they are the reason that her grandmother is falling ill. The mystical beast even offers Lily a bargain for her Halmoni’s life if she helps find those hidden-away precious things.

But can anyone truly trust a magical tiger? For that matter, should any sane person even believe in such outlandish deals? And what will happen if you do?

Lily doesn’t have any answers for any of that. But … she does believe.

Christian Beliefs

Lily’s mom talks about Halmoni’s failing health and says, “It’s in God’s hand now.” Sam responds, “But what if I don’t believe in God?” Later Lily overhears her mother quietly praying and asking God not to take her mother yet.

Other Belief Systems

A magical mysticism swirls around all of Halmoni’s Korean folklore stories. They’re tales of struggles against magical shapeshifting creatures, they usually include two sisters who represent the sun and the moon, and they generally involve conversations with a “sky god.”

Part of Lily recognizes that these stories can’t be true and could be allegorical tales meant to deliver lessons about making wise choices or to communicate important things about Korean culture. But another part of the young tween wants to believe in the supernatural aspects of those stories. She wants to believe that there is a magical tiger who can solve her problems and make her grandmother well again. And in that light, Lily secretly works at trapping the tiger and making it follow through on its growling promises.

Halmoni also follows some Korean spiritual traditions. She insists, for instance, that the family must set aside portions of food for “spirits and ancestors” in a ceremony called kosa at mealtime. The tiger also observes, “Story magic is powerful. Powerful enough to change someone.”

Authority Roles

Lily’s mom is loving and kind. And she does everything she can to try and get work while caring for the family around her. You can tell that she also carries a great emotional weight after recently losing her husband in a traffic accident. But Mom is resilient and holds everything together throughout. Halmoni, on the other hand is a guiding force of wisdom, even in the midst of her illness. She hands out small bits of common sense and Korean grandmother wisdom even to the members of the local community. And the townspeople love her for it.

When Sam and Lily ask Halmoni about something she says to a near stranger, she tells the girls: “Everybody has good and bad in them. But sometimes they so focused on sad, scary stories in life that they forget the good. When that happen, you don’t tell them they are bad. That only make it worse. You remind them of good!”

We hear of a local mother who grew frustrated and left her family. And how the woman’s young son blames himself for not doing enough to make her want to stay. In another one of Halmoni’s stories, she tells of her own mother leaving the family when she was just a girl.

Profanity & Violence

No foul language. We learn that Halmoni is struggling with a rare brain cancer. It causes her to be violently ill and have bouts of total memory loss during which she makes some irrational choices. During one of those bouts, she drives her car off the road with the girls in the back seat, even though she isn’t supposed to be driving. We also hear a brief mention of the fact that Lily’s dad was killed in a car accident.

Over the course of the story, we watch as Lily becomes much more “tigerlike” herself. The emotional strain of her grandmother’s illness makes her react in ways that even her family members are surprised by. She gets angry more quickly and lashes out at several points, smashing bottles up against a wall and throwing books in a library.

Sexual Content

Lily and her sister, Sam, meet some young people their own age at a nearby local library. One of them is a teen girl named Jensen whom Sam has a crush-like reaction to. Later we see that the two girls become huggingly close, and Lily realizes that they are now a couple.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for other books at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Have you ever been worried about someone else or afraid that they might die? How did you handle it? Or if not, how do you think you would handle it? As Christians do you think there are things that God gives us to help us in those moments? Are there promises that we can rely on?

Why do you think Lily started seeing the tiger? What did it represent for her? And what do you think the Tiger and Halmoni meant when they said that stories have power or that stories can be dangerous?

Lily makes friends with a boy named Ricky, and he’s being tutored for a class he kept failing. Was there a reason, do you think, why Ricky kept failing that class?

When you have a sad day, or when you feel upset about changes that happen, do you ever talk to anybody about it? Are some people easier to talk to than others? Why? Do you think talking helps?

What did you like most about this book?

Additional Comments

This Newbury Medal winning book has some compelling things to say about dealing with the death of a loved one. It also explores cultural differences and the need to respect and learn from cultures other than your own. But parents should know that there are some potential spiritual and some light same-sex attraction issues here that they may need to talk through with their younger readers.

You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected] .

Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

Review by Bob Hoose

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Best Books for Kids » Ages 9-12

When you trap a tiger, by tae keller.

***Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal***

“Long, long ago, when tiger walked like man…” Thus start the folktales which Halmoni (grandmother in Korean) has been telling Lily and her older sister since they were little girls. Now that Halmoni is ageing and Lily is coming of age, a magical tiger appears straight out of Lily’s favourite tale to strike a bargain: healing for Halmoni if she releases the history she has kept bottled up. A sparkling novel about the power of stories.

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When You Trap a Tiger

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When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner) Hardcover – January 28, 2020

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Print length 304 pages
Language English
Grade level 3 - 7
Lexile measure 590L
Dimensions 8.5 x 5.43 x 0.72 inches
Publisher Random House Books for Young Readers
Publication date January 28, 2020
ISBN-10 1524715700
ISBN-13 978-1524715700
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I can turn invisible.

It’s a superpower, or at least a secret power. But it’s not like in the movies, and I’m not a superhero, so don’t start thinking that. Heroes are the stars who save the day. I just—disappear.

See, I didn’t know, at first, that I had this magic. I just knew that teachers forgot my name, and kids didn’t ask me to play, and one time, at the end of fourth grade, a boy in my class frowned at me and said, Where did you come from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.

I used to hate being invisible. But now I understand: it’s because I’m magic.

My older sister, Sam, says it’s not a real supersecret power—it’s just called being shy. But Sam can be rude.

And the truth is, my power can come in handy. Like when Mom and Sam fight. Like right now.

I wrap myself in invisibility and rest my forehead against the back-seat window, watching raindrops slide down the side of our old station wagon.

“You should stop the car,” Sam says to Mom.

Except Sam actually says this to her phone, because she doesn’t look up. She’s sitting in the passenger seat with her feet slammed against the glove compartment, knees smashed into her chest, her whole body curled around her glowing screen.

Mom sighs. “Oh, please, we don’t need to stop. It’s just a little rain.” But she ticks the windshield wipers up a notch and taps the brakes until we’re going slug-slow.

The rain started as soon as we entered Washington State, and it only gets worse as our car inches past the hand-painted welcome to sunbeam! sign.

Welcome to Halmoni’s town, a town of nonstop rain, its name like an inside joke.

Sam smacks her black-painted lips. “K.”

That’s all. Just one letter.

She tap-taps her screen, sending bubbles of words and emojis to all her friends back home.

I wonder what she’s saying in those messages. Sometimes, when I let myself, I imagine she’s writing to me.

“Sam, can you at least try to have a good attitude about this?” Mom shoves her glasses up on her nose with too much force, like her glasses just insulted her and it’s personal.

“How can you even ask me that ?” Sam looks up from her phone—finally—so she can glare at Mom.

This is how it always starts. Their fights are loud and explosive. They burn each other up.

It’s safer to keep quiet. I press my fingertip against the rain-splattered window and draw a line between the drops, like I’m connecting the dots. My eyelids go heavy. I’m so used to the fighting that it’s practically a lullaby.

“But, like, you realize that you’re basically the worst, right? Like, this is actually not okay—”

“Sam.” Mom is all edges—shoulders stiff, every muscle tensed.

I hold my breath and think invisibleinvisibleinvisible.

“No, seriously,” Sam continues. “Just because you randomly decided that you want to see Halmoni more, that doesn’t mean we want to uproot our entire lives. I had plans this summer—not that you care. You didn’t even give us fair warning.”

Sam’s not wrong. Mom told us only two weeks ago that we were leaving California for good. And I’ll miss it, too. I’m going to miss my school, and the sunshine, and the sandy beach—so different from the rocky coast at Sunbeam.

I’m just trying not to think about that.

“I thought you should spend more time with your grandmother. I thought you enjoyed that.” Mom’s tone is clipped. The rain has gotten heavier, and it sucks up her focus. Her fingers white-knuckle the steering wheel. None of us like the idea of driving in this weather, not after Dad died.

I concentrate on the steering wheel and squint a little, sending safety vibes with my mind, like Halmoni taught me.

“Way to deflect,” Sam says, tugging at the single streak of white in her black hair. She’s still angry, but deflated a little. “I do enjoy spending time with Halmoni. Just not here. I don’t want to be here. ”

Halmoni’s always visited us in California. We haven’t been in Sunbeam since I was seven.

I gaze out the windshield. The landscape that slips by is peaceful. Gray stone houses, green grass, gray restaurants, green forest. The colors of Sunbeam blur together: gray, green, gray, green—and then orange, black.

I sit up, trying to make sense of the new colors.

There’s a creature lying on the road ahead.

It’s a giant cat, with its head resting on its paws.

No. Not just a giant cat. A tiger.

The tiger lifts its head as we approach. It must have escaped from a circus or a zoo or something. And it must be hurt. Why else would it be lying out here in the rain?

An instinctive kind of fear twists in my stomach, making me carsick. But it doesn’t matter. If an animal’s hurt, we have to do something.

“Mom.” I interrupt their fight, scooting forward. “I think . . . um . . . there’s . . .”

Now, a little closer, the tiger doesn’t look hurt. It yawns, revealing sharp, too-white teeth. And then it stands, one claw, one paw, one leg at a time.

“Girls,” Mom says, voice tense, tired. Her annoyance with Sam rarely bleeds onto me, but after driving for eight hours, Mom can’t contain it. “Both of you. Please. I need to focus on driving for a moment.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. This doesn’t make sense. Mom must notice the giant cat. But maybe she’s too distracted by Sam.

“Mom,” I murmur, waiting for her to hit the brakes. She doesn’t.

Sometimes the problem with my invisibility is that it takes a little while to wear off. It takes a little while for people to see me and hear me and listen.

Listen: This isn’t like any tiger I’ve seen in a zoo. It’s huge, as big as our car. The orange in its coat glows, and the black is as dark as moonless night.

This tiger belongs in one of Halmoni’s stories.

I lean forward until the seat belt slices into my skin. Somehow, Sam and Mom continue to bicker. But their words become a low hum because I’m only focused on—

The tiger lifts its enormous head—and it looks at me. It sees me.

The big cat raises an eyebrow, like it’s daring me to do something.

My voice catches in my throat, and I stumble over my words. They come out choked. “Mom— stop. ”

Mom’s busy talking to Sam, so I shout louder: “STOP.”

Finally, Mom acknowledges me. Eyebrows pinched, she glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Lily? What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t stop the car. We keep going.

And I can’t breathe because we’re too close.

I hear a thud and I squeeze my eyes shut. The inside of my head pounds. My ears ring. We must have hit it.

But we keep going.

When I open my eyes, I see Sam, arms folded across her chest, phone resting by her feet. “It died,” she announces.

My pulse is a wild beast as I scan the road, searching for horrors I don’t want to see.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Books for Young Readers (January 28, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1524715700
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1524715700
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 9 - 11 years, from customers
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 590L
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 3 - 7
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 5.43 x 0.72 inches
#42 in Children's Books on Death & Dying
#84 in Children's Multigenerational Family Life
#743 in Children's Fantasy & Magic Books

About the author

TAE KELLER grew up in Honolulu, where she wrote stories, ate Spam musubis, and participated in her school’s egg drop competition. (She did not win.) After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, she moved to New York City to work in publishing, and she now has a very stubborn Yorkie and a multitude of books as roommates.

Subscribe to her newsletter for writing updates and exclusive content: bit.ly/taekellernews

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Josiah's Reviews > When You Trap a Tiger

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Reading Progress

Review: When You Trap a Tiger

“I feel for the mugwort in my pocket, but it’s gone – and in a flash of orange and black, the tiger disappears, too.” page 147

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller. Random House, New York, 2020. MG fantasy, 298 pages. Lexile: 590L . AR Level: 4.1 (worth 8.0 points) .

Lily, her older sister Samantha, and their mother have left California to live with Halmoni (grandmother), which Sam resents and Lily quietly accepts. But as they arrive, Lily begins to see something nobody else does – a tiger who can talk and walk through buildings and strike bargains, who wants something from her family.

I had gotten this book, read and enjoyed it, started a review, and was in my second reading when… it won the Newberry. All of a sudden everyone was reading and reviewing it! I frequently am surprised by, or disagree with, the Newberry awards – but it isn’t often my reaction is disbelief that others chose a book I personally loved .

After it won, what I had been writing to try and convince people to read this didn’t make sense any more. People read Newberry books for decades even if they aren’t very good. So I sat on this post for months, unconvinced my review would be useful. After a book gets popular, ownvoice reviewers typically speak to specific strengths and weaknesses better than I possibly could.

As you can guess by the post you’re currently reading, I eventually decided to finish the review. Partly in order to add this to my next diverse MG fantasy recommendation list, partly because the work was already begun, and partly because diverse middle grade fantasy is one of my interests. Since much of the review had to be scrapped to fit the changing circumstances, it left some wordcount free for me to explain.

Now back to the book, a gorgeous story that will resonate with introverted fantasy lovers . It feels weird to call something set in the suburbs an urban fantasy, but this is an unusual read on several counts. Keller has created a unique blend of multiple subgenres of speculative fiction.

While Lily and her family are fully American, their Korean heritage is sprinkled throughout. I especially loved the use of Korean words for family relationships as they are so much more detailed than English descriptors. This was a reverse of Jenny Han ‘s Lara Jean – instead of being raised in a mostly white environment, Lily is surrounded by Korean culture. We don’t even find out that her deceased father was white until page 163.

Her grandmother’s town is predominately white, but that’s called out. Her family laughs about the Asian restaurant and white people are described as much as non-white characters. She is aware of whiteness, but grounded in her Korean family. I actually appreciated this perspective even more than the fantasy aspects of this novel, and that’s saying a lot!

This story utilizes magical realism with just a touch of fantasy, and I found Keller’s methods of incorporating different storytelling devices fascinating on a technical level and effective as a reader. The way in which she uses a Latine fantasy genre to tell a deeply Korean story within a white American setting is both masterful, and a potential look at what the future of MG fantasy could hold.

This particular book is universal in its specificity , utilizing techniques from different genres with characters firmly grounded in their own identity having experiences and feeling emotions that are relatable across humankind. All of which can probably be summarized by saying – I heartily agree that this book is worthy of notice.

The content warnings do include some spoilers, which I will limit to the next two paragraphs. Halmoni is slowly dying of a cancerous brain tumor. Characters break in to a house and library, sneak around at night, and hide things from each other. Hallucinations and mental illness briefly come up – generally not too poorly treated but I did wish explanation had been included of what steps to take next if someone does see or hear things not to be there. While that might have ruined the magic, it certainly could have been included in an author’s note or other back matter. Although it’s not common, I have had students at this age who were having visual or auditory hallucinations.

Indeed, these felt a lot like a representation of Lily’s anxiety, and that’s ultimately how I personally read this element of the text. There is a minor LGBTQ subplot – Sam has a girlfriend and Lily is mostly oblivious until she sees them snuggle and realizes that they are a couple. That realization is four paragraphs near the end of the book, and all the rest is fairly ambiguous (honestly in between reads I forgot that even happened), so I wouldn’t consider it especially diverse in that aspect.

Magical realism as a whole tends to be polarizing, and I have rarely met other fantasy fans who share my lukewarm feelings about the technique. Because this book won the Newberry, many people are going to read it, and some are bound to hate it. In particular, whenever genre fiction, or lately diverse books, win they tend to be subject to much more vehement and intense criticism. I doubt this book will have universal appeal, but When You Trap a Tiger does have crossover potential for fantasy fans who don’t mind some gritty realism or contemporary fiction readers okay with mystique. Recommended.

Author: colorfulbookreviews

I work in a library by day and parent the rest of the time. I am passionate about good books representing the full spectrum of human diversity for every age group and reading level. This blog is my attempt to help parents, educators, and librarians find the best children's books authored by or featuring characters of color. View all posts by colorfulbookreviews

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Author Interview and Book Review: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

February 7, 2020
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Please Note: I received an electronic review copy and was monetarily compensated in exchange for a book review and an interview with the author. I promise that this compensation in no way affected my opinions or review.

Title When You Trap A Tiger Author Tae Keller Pages 304 Pages Target Audience Middle Grade Genre & Keywords Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Fabulism Publication Date January 28th 2020 by Random House Books For Young Readers Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound

FIVE STARRED REVIEWS! This uplifting story of a girl who discovers a secret family history when she makes a deal with the magical tiger from her grandmother’s stories brings Korean folklore to life. Some stories refuse to stay bottled up… When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal – return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni’s health – Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice…and the courage to face a tiger. Tae Keller, the award-winning author of The Science of Breakable Things , shares a sparkling tale about the power of stories and the magic of family. Think Walk Two Moons meets Where the Mountain Meets the Moon !

1. The act of storytelling and the power of the stories as a source of connection and comfort are central themes in When You Trap A Tiger . What stories, books and/or authors have you found empowering and have influenced your life in a positive way?

I still remember the feeling I had when I first learned to read on my own. Empowering is exactly the right word. I felt the rush of independence, being able to escape into story worlds all by myself.

And I remember feeling honored, in a sense, when I read powerful books. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate this at the time, but I think I was reacting to the way masterful storytellers really trust their readers. Reading a novel is an act of collaboration; the writer crafts the story, and the reader brings it to life. I loved reading books by Lisa Yee, Kate Dicamillo, and Margaret Peterson Haddix because their trust felt like a gift.

2. When You Trap A Tiger is your second middle grade novel, following your debut, The Science of Breakable Things , which was published in 2018. What about writing for this particular age group do you find special and inspiring?

Science was the first time I’d ever attempted middle grade. Before that, I’d written all kinds of shelved YA stories — but my middle grade voice surprised me.

When I write YA, there’s a level of distance — I think because that’s how I felt as a teenager. I put up walls and boarded myself up from the world. In middle school, I hadn’t yet developed that armor. Everything was raw and immediate — the good and the bad, I felt it all so deeply. And because of that, I think my middle grade voice is more honest.

It’s often rewarding to return to that self, that girl who was not afraid to feel. It can be scary, too, to feel that vulnerable again, but I think that means I’m on the right track.

3. How did writing When You Trap A Tiger differ from (or align with) your experience writing The Science of Breakable Things ?

With Science , I never expected my writing to be published. I wrote that book after I graduated college, partially in an attempt to distract myself from the job search. I never imagined that writing would become my job.

Writing Tiger was so much different because I was under contract for the story before I even began it. I knew for sure that people would read my next book. I was brainstorming with my publisher and visiting schools where I was meeting kid readers, and I felt a lot of pressure. I worried about disappointing all these people.

When I eventually learned to separate and silence all those pressures and outside voices, the writing processes were actually fairly similar. Both books went through about twenty drafts, both books had creative ups and downs, both books were simultaneously exhausting and rewarding.

At the end of the day, I write because I love storytelling and I love the creative challenge. I love learning about craft and improving as much as I can. But with Tiger I had to learn a whole new skill. I had to learn to compartmentalize.

4. Navigating mental health in a sensitive and empathetic manner seems to play a fundamental role in your writing, as you explored the topic of depression in The Science of Breakable Things and grief in When You Trap A Tiger . I wish these novels had been published when I was a child, as I have no doubt they would have provided me (and millions of other young readers) with a great deal of comfort and I’m so grateful they exist for young readers today. Why is the subject of mental health in particular so prevalent in and important for you to include in your work?

The thing I’m working toward, in any book, is always empathy — both promoting it to readers who may not relate to a character’s situation, and extending it to readers who do. In fiction, the reader steps so intimately into a character’s mind, and that creates a window into someone else’s world. It is an exercise in empathy. And especially with something like mental health, which is too often misunderstood, empathy is crucial.

For readers who can relate, I want my stories to say: You are not alone. Your feelings are not wrong; your feelings are human.

5. From the food the characters’ eat to the stories and traditions they share, Lily’s Korean heritage is lovingly and beautifully interwoven throughout When You Trap A Tiger . For those who haven’t been lucky enough to read your author’s note at the conclusion of the novel yet, can you share a little about how When You Trap A Tiger came to be and how your own history, heritage and research into Korean womanhood informed the novel?

I had written some of the opening chapters of Tiger right after I finished Science , but I set the story aside because I didn’t feel ready to write it. I was daunted by the idea of working on something that directly addressed my Korean identity, and I knew the story was ambitious; I didn’t think I had the skills to write it yet, and I didn’t think I understood my heritage well enough.

But I was haunted by this story; these mythical tigers wouldn’t leave me alone. So I decided to be a little creatively reckless, and I took the story off the shelf.

The truth was, I wasn’t ready to write it. Not at first. I had to learn a lot along the way, both in terms of craft and history. But the more I dove into my Korean history, the more comfortable I felt in my own skin. Reading through the past was hard at times — there was a lot of brutality during the Japanese occupation, and specifically with the comfort women during the war — but understanding the history of Korea gave me context for how I was raised. Learning those stories made me feel like a more whole version of myself, and so that idea became central to the novel: These painful stories are not always easy to tell, but we need to tell them in order to move forward, in order to heal, in order to be ourselves, fully and wholly.

6. Lily deals with a great deal of change over the course of When You Trap A Tiger as she struggles to cope with moving to a new state, making new friends, and her grandmother’s worsening illness. Is there any advice you could offer to young readers currently grappling with change, however small or large? Is there anything that has helped you better handle change in your own life?

I think adulthood is bittersweet because every adult knows that all things end. This can be comforting in a difficult life stage, it can be heartbreaking in a joyful one, and it can be terrifying, always, because you don’t often know when something will end, why, or what comes next.

And I think middle school is when a lot of kids realize this for the first time. Before that, childhood seems infinite. If you’re ten, one year is 10% of your life. That’s long. School years last forever.

But I think coming of age, at its core, is about understanding the idea of ending. It’s always a little scary, it’s often bittersweet, but we come out the other side.

7. Let’s have some fun! One of my favourite characters, Lily’s new friend, Ricky, texts her a list of his favourite foods to make Lily smile when she’s feeling down. What are some foods or dishes you couldn’t live without?

One of my favorite things about this book is that I got to include all my favorite foods! Naengmyeon, dukk, kimchi. These are the comfort foods I grew up on, and it was so gratifying to put them in a novel.

I’m also a sucker for popcorn. I’ll eat it plain or dressed up in any way, but my favorite is the way we eat it in Hawaii — with Nori shreds and mochi crunch.

8. At the outset of When You Trap A Tiger , Lily is shy and introverted and refers to her ability to become ‘invisible’ as her superpower. Her sister, Sam, often chastises Lily for being a ‘QAG’ (“Quiet Asian Girl”) and Sam actively works to disprove this stereotype by being as outspoken as possible. As someone who personally struggles with confrontation and asserting herself, Lily’s journey to become more confident, honest about her feelings and comfortable taking up space was inspiring and empowering for me. Can you speak a little about what inspired you to include this particular element of the story and what you hope readers will take away from Lily’s journey and the novel as a whole?

I’ve always been a quiet person, and for a much of my life, I felt like that was a big flaw in my personality. Every school year, I went home with report cards that said I needed to learn how to “speak up”, and I hated when my friends called me quiet. In high school, I learned to play the part of an extrovert to fit in, but it never felt natural to me. Because we live in a culture that values noise, it took me too long to realize that being quiet isn’t wrong.

When I wrote Lily’s character development, I wanted to show her growth, but I didn’t want her to fix her problems by becoming loud and outspoken. At the end of the novel, she is still a thoughtful, introverted person, but she learns to find confidence and strength in that.

“I am a girl who sees invisible things, but I am not invisible.”

Lily is so used to being ‘invisible’, she’s convinced it’s her super power. It’s especially difficult to speak up when her outspoken older sister, Sam, is doing enough talking for the both of them. ( “What Sam doesn’t realize is that she’s already rocking our boat. If I rock it, too, the boat will flip. We’ll drown.” ) It becomes difficult to remain quiet, however, when Lily, Sam and their mother move from California to Washington in order to live closer to Lily’s Halmoni (grandmother) to help care for her, and the girls struggle to adapt to a new town, make new friends, and cope with their grandmother’s failing health. It isn’t until the unexpected appearance of a giant, mysterious, talking tiger that only Lily can see and speak to that Lily is able to find her voice. Filled to the brim with Korean folktales, mystical creatures, stories hidden in the stars and much, much more, When You Trap A Tiger is a magical novel that demonstrates how powerful, comforting and inspiring middle grade literature can be.

I feel confident in saying that discovering the work of author Tae Keller will be one of the best things I do in 2020, and it’s only February. After reading (and falling in love with) the author’s debut novel, The Science of Breakable Things , at the beginning of the year, Penguin Random House was kind enough to approach me and ask if I would be interested in reading Keller’s January 2020 release, When You Trap A Tiger , and I couldn’t have been more excited!

One of the Tae Keller’s many strengths as a writer lies in her ability to address difficult topics in a sensitive, empathetic and accessible way. In her debut novel, The Science of Breakable Things , the novel’s protagonist, Natalie, attempts to better connect with her botanist mother and understand her mother’s chronic depression through an exploration of the scientific process. In When You Trap A Tiger , Lily uses her grandmother’s familiar Korean folktales to re-connect with her older sister and parse the trauma and grief she is experiencing because of both the death of her father when she was a child and her grandmother’s worsening cancer and eventual death. Despite the seriousness of the aforementioned topics, however, Keller’s work is never lacking in hope or sensitivity. Keller uses stories and the act of storytelling as a way for Lily to navigate and make sense of immense change, and in doing so teaches young readers that while change and even endings are inevitable, they are by no means something to fear. ( “I don’t yet know the ending, but I will face my story as it changes and grows. Because of Halmoni, I can be brave. I can be anything.” )

Stories also form the basis for Lily’s growing understanding of her grandmother’s past as well as a growing understanding of her Korean ancestry. It becomes clear that Halmoni is reluctant to speak about her past, and she admits to Lily that while the stories she shares with her granddaughters are always positive and end happily, there are other stories she’s reluctant to share because “Some stories are too dangerous to tell. (…) Sometime, they make people feed bad and act bad. Some of those stories make me feel sad and small.” Halmoni tells Lily that she ‘stole’ a number of these stories and hid them away, hoping to free herself and others from the sadness and anger they inspired. Unbeknownst to her Halmoni, Lily comes to believe it is these stories that the mysterious tiger is hunting, and it is only through telling these hidden, ‘stolen’ stories that her grandmother will truly be set free. ( “Maybe keeping those stories secret is a bad thing. Because all those things still happened, even if you don’t talk about it. And hiding it doesn’t erase the past – it only bottles it up.” ) What Lily, and the reader, ultimately learn is that stories have the power to connect, preserve and immortalize, and it is through these stories, tradition and memory that those we love are able to live forever.

There’s so much to love about When You Trap A Tiger , I can’t help but worry that a review will never truly do it justice. Keller’s writing is exquisite, managing to be both profound and beguiling while remaining approachable and easy to understand. The warmth and depth of the personal connections the author draws, whether it be Lily’s loving relationship with her grandmother, her strained disconnection (and reconnection) with her older sister, Sam, or burgeoning friendship with the talkative and inquisitive Ricky, Keller emphasizes the beauty of both biological and found family. The characterization is strong, particularly in the case of Lily, who is a quiet, introverted girl who learns over the course of the novel that you don’t have to speak the loudest or the most to speak volumes.

Compassionate, uplifting, and full of heart, When You Trap A Tiger would make a valuable addition to any library, classroom or personal collection and would be a particular gift and comfort to readers struggling with grief and loss. I’m thrilled I was introduced to Tae Keller’s work this year, and even more thankful that young readers everywhere have her empathy and eloquence to guide them.

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When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions, When You Trap a Tiger Review

When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions and Review

When You Trap a Tiger Review and When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions written by the Hobbit and the Unicorn on 3/8/2021 This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog.

Know Before You Read

Book : When You Trap a Tiger Author : Tae Keller Genre : Magical Realism, Coming of Age Length : 298 pages Age suggested : 12+ Release Date : January 2020 Themes : Family, Korean folklore, grief Warnings : The protagonist’s father died before the story begins and another character is in a home where the mom recently left.

Awards: 2021 Newbery Medal 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award For Children’s Literature 2020 Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award for Fiction and Poetry

Quick Summary of When You Trap a Tiger

Lily and her family move from California to Washington to be with her sick grandmother (halmoni). On the trip there a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives. The tiger tells her that halmoni stole stories from them. What will Lily find out about herself and about her family? Can you trust a tiger?

When You Trap a Tiger Review: SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

“Long, long ago, when tiger walked like man…”

Lily and her family (her mother and older sister Sam) are moving from California to Sunbeam, Washington, to live with their halmoni (grandmother). The move is sudden and their mother has not explained a lot. Lily and Sam had always enjoyed hearing stories from their Korean grandmother, but are not sure what is happening.

Their favorite story is about a tiger and two sisters who became the sun and the moon to escape the tiger. On the way there, Lily sees a tiger in the road – which Sam and her mon cannot see. Of course Lily tells Halmoni, and she believes her – and tells her that she stole something from the tigers many years ago, and now they have come to get it back.

Lily now knows that her halmoni is very ill, and the tiger tells her she can help. With the help of her new friend Ricky, Lily builds a tiger trap. Finally facing the tiger, she strikes a bargain – but can you trust what a tiger tells you?

The book melds traditional Korean folktales into a contemporary story as Lily struggles with who she is and with her grandmother’s mortality. The book highlights the importance of stories – even if they are painful. And you may just believe in magical tigers….

Continue reading for more of our When You Trap a Tiger Review

– Why Read When You Trap a Tiger-

The book mixes Korean folklore, magic, family, friendship and love (and of course tigers!). There are a number of topics in this book, and all are handled artfully – loss, grief, family history, identity, and LGTBQ – but at heart is the theme of storytelling. Why are stories important? How do stories root us in family identity and help us know who our family is? How do stories help us find out who we are? Reading this book should change some lives as kids discover the power of story.

-Plot/Story of When You Trap A Tiger –

I was first introduced to magical realism about a year ago. I have quickly become a fan. Using it allows you to blend in multiple elements – in this case, for example, folklore, real settings, magic – without a seam. Using it makes the Korean folklore come alive. We can see how these stories have provided meaning to many generations.

For the stories in this book, we see how these stories have impacted multiple generations of Korean women. And we can see each generation taking old stories and telling those stories in new ways, as the stories are living and are real in a way that we can best see when trapping magical tigers and driving a car are both equally real. In this story, through magical realism we can see that stories can be many things. Some are happy. Some are sad. And we need all of them.

The book has a small set of characters and they are all well done. All of the characters, even those with smaller roles (Ricky’s dad, for instance), are needed in the plot. There are no throw away characters in this story.

A religious note-

At Down the Hobbit Hole Blog, we love books like this that emphasize storytelling because we believe that God made us to love stories. Stories tell us profound truths – and honor the way that we are made.

As we learn to love story more, we can relate more to God. He tells us a series of stories that make up one grand story in the Bible. And while this book is not inherently focused on telling a Biblical story- it does emphasize the incredible power of good stories, like the ones in the Bible.

Continue reading for our When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions

When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions

Which of the tiger stories was your favorite? Why?
Do you think the tiger was real? Why or why not?
Find out more about magical realism. Do you like stories that take magical elements and make them part of ordinary life?
Have you ever moved and had to make new friends? How hard was it?
Which of the main characters (Lily, Sam, Ricky, Jensen) do you relate to the most? Why?
Why is the library an important place? How important are stories in your life?

Thank you for reading our When you Trap a Tiger Discussion questions and Review. Before you go, check out these other posts

– American Born Chinese Review

– Blue Parakeet : How to read the Bible as a story

– New Kid and Class Act reviews with Discussion Questions

Down The Hobbit Hole Blog and this When You Trap a Tiger Review and When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions use affiliate links. We only link products we think you’ll like and you are never charged extra for them. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. We also use cookies to gather analytics and present advertisements. This allows us to keep writing discussion questions and telling ridiculous dad jokes. Find our other reviews with discussion questions here. Our posts about faith here. And our posts about family stuff here.

When You Trap a Tiger

75 pages • 2 hours read

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Summary and Study Guide

When You Trap a Tiger is a middle grade contemporary novel with fantasy elements published in 2020. Author Tae Keller received the 2021 Newbery Medal for the book—the story of middle schooler Lily Reeves , her older sister Sam Reeves , and their mother moving in with the girls’ Korean halmoni (grandmother) when she falls ill. In an attempt to save her grandmother’s life, Lily makes a deal with the mysterious tiger stalking Halmoni, and as a result, learns more about her family and Korean heritage. This guide refers to the 2020 Penguin Random House edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

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It is the summer between sixth and seventh grade for Lily. Lily, her older sister Sam, and their mother are moving from their sunny beach town in California to rainy Sunbeam, Washington. Mom says they must move in order to spend more time with her mother, the girls’ Korean halmoni (grandmother) who immigrated to America long ago. The story opens as Mom drives through a rainstorm to Halmoni’s house. Mom and Sam bicker in the front seat; Lily stays quietly “invisible” in the back. Suddenly, Lily sees a large tiger in the road with no rain falling on it. Lily fails to get Mom’s attention, and the tiger walks off unseen by anyone but her. She can’t wait to tell Halmoni, well versed as she is in Korean myths, magic, and spirits. Halmoni tells a surprised Lily that the tiger is real and wants something she herself once stole. The older woman says the kosa they offer (a meal for the spirits) before dinner will protect Lily.

Lily wishes to hear more and recalls her favorite tiger story—one Halmoni used to tell back when the girls lived with her following their father’s death in a car accident. In Lily’s favorite story, a tiger eats the halmoni of two little girls, then disguises itself as their halmoni to trick them into letting it into their home. The sisters flee across the world, begging a sky god to save them. In exchange for a story, the sky god allows Eggi (the younger sister) to ascend to the sky via a staircase where she becomes the sun, and Unya (the older sister) by a rope, where she becomes the moon. The sky god banishes the tiger.

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Later that night, Lily discovers Halmoni sick in the bathroom. Halmoni tells Lily that she once stole stories in the form of stars and hid them away in secret jars; these stories were sad and dangerous, so Halmoni took them to protect herself and others. Now, covetous tigers hunt her, wanting the stories back. The next day, Halmoni becomes ill on a trip to the grocery store, and Mom makes her go to the hospital. That night, Lily sees a huge tigress in the house while everyone else is asleep. It offers her a deal: Halmoni will feel better if Lily returns the stories. She refuses. The next day, Mom tells her that Halmoni has brain cancer and will die within months or weeks.

Bereft, Lily decides she must protect Halmoni. She goes to the library across the street to read up on tigers. A boy named Ricky enthusiastically offers to help build a tiger trap when he learns of Lily’s interest in doing so. The two move a pile of Halmoni’s boxes into a ring-shaped enclosure in the basement and secure it with a rope. Lily trips over one of the boxes and it breaks, revealing three odd glass bottles, dark and corked: Halmoni’s star jars. Lily sneaks into the basement that night to wait for the trap to work and falls asleep.

Lily wakes to find a tigress trapped. At the tigress’s behest, she agrees to open the star jars and hear their stories. The first night, the tigress tells the story of a half-tiger girl who tried to save her baby from the same fate; she abandons her baby and trains to replace the aging sky god (in exchange for the infant’s humanity). The next day, Halmoni has an upsetting episode of confusion in a restaurant; Lily knows time is running out. The tigress’s story that night follows the baby becoming a half-tiger despite the deal her mother made. The infant flees from her caretaker, her own halmoni ; the halmoni sends her jars of love across the sea.

The next day, Lily is terrified when Halmoni briefly fails to recognize her. That night, Lily tells Halmoni that she plans to open the third star jar to heal her—but the older woman tells her the jars came from a flea market; no magic can save her. Crushed, Lily smashes the star jars against a wall. Halmoni collapses; paramedics take her and Mom to the hospital. Lily and Sam are forced to stay behind as the latter is too scared to drive in the rain.

In her grief, Lily seeks the tigress’s help once more; it keeps the road around the car rain-free. At the hospital, Halmoni asks for a story and Lily tells her one. She completes the tigress’s stories with a twist: The two sisters of Halmoni’s own tiger story find a new sky god in the tiger-mother who abandoned her baby. The sky god invites the sisters to open her daughter’s star jars (the ones sent by her halmoni when she fled the land). The girls do, and the stars become stories of their own halmoni and previous generations of women.

After Halmoni dies, the family grieves. They turn the community’s library bake sale into a kosa honoring Halmoni, and many from town attend. When Lily takes a moment to rest, Sam approaches and asks her to tell another story.

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When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
When You Trap a Tiger Book Review
Book Review: When You Trap A Tiger, 2021 Newbery Winner
Book Review: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
When You Trap A Tiger Book review
Book Review: When You Trap A Tiger, 2021 Newbery Winner

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When you Trap a Tiger chapter 6 and 7 by Tae Keller read by David Gould
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COMMENTS

When You Trap a Tiger Book Review
Our review: Parents say ( 5 ): Kids say ( 3 ): There's a kind of magic in this book that goes beyond the sum of its parts: a coming-of-age story; an #ownvoices narrative of loss, grief, and triumph; and a modern folktale all in one. When You Trap a Tiger has a strong girl lead who's brave, complex, and diligent, and a strong representation and ...
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
Tae Keller. TAE KELLER is the Newbery award winning and New York Times bestselling author of When You Trap a Tiger and The Science of Breakable Things. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she subsisted on kimchi, purple rice, and stories. Now, she writes about biracial girls trying to find their voices, and lives in Seattle with her husband ...
WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER
Keller infuses this tale, which explores both the end of life and coming-of-age, with a sensitive examination of immigration issues and the complexity of home. It is at one and the same time completely American and thoroughly informed by Korean culture. Longing—for connection, for family, for a voice—roars to life with just a touch of magic.
Book Review: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller (2020)
In When You Trap a Tiger, the 2021 Newbery Medal winner, Lily, her mom, and her sister, Sam, have recently left California and moved to Sunbeam, Washington to live with Lily's halmoni, her Korean grandmother who has always been surrounded by an air of magic and mystery.Upon arriving, Lily sees a tiger in the road outside Halmoni's house, but when she realizes it isn't visible to anyone else ...
2021 Newbery Award-Winner Book Review: When You Trap a Tiger
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller is the recipient of the 2021 ALA Newbery Award 1 as well as the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Children's Literature. 2 Ms. Keller is an Own Voices author, which is "an author from a [n] . . . under-represented group writing . . . from their own perspective." 3 Keller's character Lily, the ...
When You Trap a Tiger
Halmoni weaves the most wonderful stories—some plucked from Korean folklore, others snatched out of imagination—that have always seemed magical and mysterious to Lily. But when Lily and her family pull into Sunbeam—in a pouring torrential rain, no less—Lily sees a tiger. No, not just a tiger, this is a Tiger: a huge, obviously magical ...
Book Review: When You Trap A Tiger, 2021 Newbery Winner
Title: When You Trap A Tiger. Author: Tae Keller. Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2020. ISBN #978-1-5247-1570-. When You Trap a Tiger is the newest Newbery Award Winner and along with that comes pretty high expectations! For some readers, this might be their first dip into magical realism, a type of fiction that depicts the world as it appears, but with hints or forces of ...
When You Trap a Tiger
About When You Trap a Tiger. WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL • WINNER OF THE ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ... —The Bulletin, starred review "This beautiful book reminds us that, even in a world filled with stolen stars, ...
When You Trap a Tiger
by Tae Keller. ***Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal***. "Long, long ago, when tiger walked like man…". Thus start the folktales which Halmoni (grandmother in Korean) has been telling Lily and her older sister since they were little girls. Now that Halmoni is ageing and Lily is coming of age, a magical tiger appears straight out of Lily's ...
When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner)
When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal--return what her grandmother ...
When You Trap a Tiger: Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal
When You Trap a Tiger: Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal [Tae Keller] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. When You Trap a Tiger: Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal ... Book reviews & recommendations : IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities: IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need: Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print ...
When You Trap a Tiger
When You Trap a Tiger. Random . Jan. 2020. 304p. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9781524715700. Gr 4-7-Lily has always loved her halmoni's stories; Korean folktales that begin, "long, long ago, when tiger walked like a man.". But Lily never expected to encounter the fierce magical tiger in her sick grandmother's basement, or to strike a deal to heal ...
When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner)
When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner) [Keller, Tae] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner) ... — The Bulletin, starred review "This beautiful book reminds us that, even in a world filled with stolen stars, crafty tigers, and family secrets that spring from folklore, ...
Josiah (Elburn, IL)'s review of When You Trap a Tiger
Josiah 's review. Apr 19, 2021. liked it. As with all forms of entertainment in 2020, consumption of children's books was dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. That didn't stop the American Library Association awards from proceeding more or less as usual, and in January 2021, Tae Keller won the Newbery Medal for When You Trap a Tiger.
Review: When You Trap a Tiger
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller. Random House, New York, 2020. MG fantasy, 298 pages. Lexile: 590L . AR Level: 4.1 (worth 8.0 points) . Lily, her older sister Samantha, and their mother have left California to live with Halmoni (grandmother), which Sam resents and Lily quietly accepts. But as they arrive, Lily begins to see something nobody ...
When You Trap a Tiger Book Review and Ratings by Kids
When You Trap a Tiger has 9 reviews and 8 ratings. Reviewer queenslay1125 wrote: "I actually figured this book out because of a book club. At first I was so bored reading this, but what caught my attention is in the middle of the book.
When You Trap a Tiger
An Excerpt from When You Trap a Tiger. When You Trap a Tiger. 1. I can turn invisible. It's a superpower, or at least a secret power. But it's not like in the movies, and I'm not a superhero, so don't start thinking that. Heroes are the stars who save the day. I just—disappear. See, I didn't know, at first, that I had this magic.
Author Interview and Book Review: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
I loved reading books by Lisa Yee, Kate Dicamillo, and Margaret Peterson Haddix because their trust felt like a gift. 2. When You Trap A Tiger is your second middle grade novel, following your debut, The Science of Breakable Things, which was published in 2018.
When You Trap a Tiger Discussion Questions and Review
Book: When You Trap a Tiger. Author: Tae Keller. Genre: Magical Realism, Coming of Age. Length: 298 pages. Age suggested: 12+. Release Date: January 2020. Themes: Family, Korean folklore, grief. Warnings: The protagonist's father died before the story begins and another character is in a home where the mom recently left.
When You Trap a Tiger
When You Trap a Tiger. (Newbery Medal Winner) Tae Keller. 978-1-5247-1570-. $17.99 US. Hardcover. Random House Books for Young Readers. Jan 28, 2020. Age 8-12 years.
When You Trap a Tiger Summary and Study Guide
When You Trap a Tiger is a middle grade contemporary novel with fantasy elements published in 2020. Author Tae Keller received the 2021 Newbery Medal for the book—the story of middle schooler Lily Reeves, her older sister Sam Reeves, and their mother moving in with the girls' Korean halmoni (grandmother) when she falls ill. In an attempt to save her grandmother's life, Lily makes a deal ...
When You Trap a Tiger (Newbery Medal Winner)|Paperback
When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal—return what her ...
When You Trap a Tiger
978-1-5247-1566-3. $17.99 US. Hardcover. Random House Books for Young Readers. Mar 06, 2018. WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL • WINNER OF THE ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN AWARD FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWould you make a deal with a magical tiger?
BOOK REVIEW: 'The Achilles Trap'
These books demonstrate that Mr. Coll has few equals in the quality of his sources and ability to obtain classified documents. Add his storytelling flair and a cast of characters teeming with ...

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When You Trap a Tiger: (Newbery Medal Winner) Hardcover – January 28, 2020

When You Trap a Tiger Review: SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT