When You Trap a Tiger

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

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.

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.