Tae Keller: When You Trap a Tiger (Penguin Random House 2020)
Lily has a secret superpower: she can turn invisible. Not like in the movies where the hero saves the day. She can simply disappear so that no one notices her. According to her sister, this is called being shy. But Lily knows that it is magic and it comes in especially handy when she wants to stay out of her mother and sister’s fights. Just such an argument occurs when they move from California to Lily’s grandmother (her halmoni) because she needs help. The girls have always loved their halmoni, who told them Korean fairy tales, but this still means a big change in everyone’s life. That’s when the tiger first comes to Lily…
The story is based on the Korean fairy tale of the Sun and the Moon, several versions of which appear in the book. For me, the most interesting thing was that we don’t find out if magic really exists or if it’s just magical when people care about each other. Family and sibling relationships are at the heart of the story. And the most important message, in my opinion, is that we shouldn’t be afraid to show our emotions and show ourselves to the world.
Tae Keller was born and raised in Honolulu, where she listened to her halmoni’s tiger stories. After graduating from college, she moved to New York to work in publishing. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband and many-many books.
