The first story tells of a girl that is half-human and half-tiger but wants to hide the part of her that is a tiger. Lily agrees to return stories to the tiger and listen to them carefully in exchange for the tiger to help Halmoni with the brain cancer she is suffering from. In Chapters 19 - 27, Lily and Ricky's trap works - the tiger gets caught one night when Lily sneaks back down to the basement.

Lily recruits his help in building a tiger trap which she hopes will lure the tiger to her and help return the stories to her which she thinks are stores in some jars Halmoni keeps in her basement. She also meets Ricky, a chatty boy around her age who professes to know about tiger traps. In Chapters 10 - 18, Lily meets Joe and Jensen - staff members at the library across the street from Halmoni's house.

Lily sees her grandmother vomiting and realizes Halmoni is likely quite ill. When she tells Halmoni about the tiger, Lily's grandmother believes her and says she thinks the tiger is there to get stories back that Halmoni stole a long time ago. Lily sees a tiger in the middle of the road on their way there but refrains from telling her family, since they are too busy arguing and she knows no one but Halmoni will believe in a magical tiger. In Chapters 1 - 9 Lily Reeves, her sister Sam, and her mother Joan arrive in Sunbeam, Washington, where they are to live with Joan's mother, Halmoni. The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Keller, Tae.

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller