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
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