100: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller #Newbery100

2022 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Newbery Medal. In honor of this momentous event, I launched a project to read through each award-winner, starting with some background on the award and with commentary on the first medal winner: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon. Today I take up the 2021 recipient: When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller.

2020 involved a lot of difficult things, and besides our shared grief over our collective losses, everyone experienced some degree of disruption to their ordinary. For authors bringing books into the world during this unsettled time, the ordinary things (book tours, conferences, school events) were not just disrupted; they had to be set aside. Despite those difficulties, 2020 offered a remarkable crop of Newbery contenders, culminating in these 2021 honorees.

Winner:

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller (Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House) Honor Books:

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick)

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Michele Wood (Candlewick)

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial)

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins)

A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick)

Members of 2021 Newbery Medal Selection Committee: Chair Dr. Jonda C. McNair; Sarah Bean Thompson; Elizabeth A. Burns; Timothy D. Capehart; Arika J. Dickens; Joanna K. Fabicon; Hyunjin Han; Susan Dove Lempke; Maren C. Ostergard; Dr. Linda M. Pavonetti; David C. Saia; Jo Phillips Schofield; Eva Thaler-Sroussi; Lisa M. Thomas; Alicia S.Q. Yao; and Award Administrative Assistant Gretchen Schulz.

As demonstrated by the number of honor titles (and by the number of titles absent here but celebrated in kidlit circles far and wide), this year was not an automatic decision. Some years, the consensus around the winner develops early and relatively easily. In years like this one, the discussion around distinction and merit and audience can make consensus feel impossible. For instance, while many felt Fighting Words was the most distinguished title of the year, many others (myself included) worried that its graphic content created significant audience issues and raised questions around the "stamp of approval" that the Newbery Medal implies. Should families and schools have to "protect" young readers from a medal-winner that discusses sexual abuse? Does the committee have a responsibility to consider how the medal will affect its reception in the world?

As I read along in 2020, When You Trap a Tiger became for me an early favorite (along with NBA winner King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender). Like Jacob Have I Loved, this book features sisters and a grandmother, but in Keller's rendition, the grandmother is a beloved fount of Korean folklore not a scripture-spitting grump. Lily's halmoni is the heart of this story of family and loss, and the way Keller weaves Halmoni's tales into her contemporary narrative feels effortless despite the considerable skill it demands.

Here's an excerpt from my original review:

Halmoni's stories have secrets within them because, as she says, "Some stories too dangerous to tell." When Lily wonders how stories can be dangerous, Halmoni explains, "Sometime, they make people feel bad and act bad. Some of those stories make me feel sad and small." She goes on, "I hear my halmoni cry when she tell me sad stories, our Korean history. I see my neighbors get scare. My friends get angry. And I think: Why do we have to hear bad stories? Isn't it better if bad stories just go 'way?"

From there, Halmoni's story unfolds, and as Lily begins to understand how sick her grandmother is, she is determined to find a cure. Even if it means facing down a tiger. Lily has spent her life being the quiet one, the shy one - never the hero. But she knows she has to try. And once she meets the tiger, everything gets muddled. The tiger insists there is power in the stories, "Open the jars, listen to a story, heal your halmoni. That is painfully reasonable."

So Lily listens. But when her halmoni does not get better, she confronts the tiger: "How is this story going to cure my halmoni?" And the tiger replies:

"A cure is not about what we want. It's about what we need. The same is true for stories."

Ultimately, unavoidably, Lily realizes that not all stories have a happy ending, that the cure may not always look like we imagine; however, she also learns there is something in every story, something of worth, something of power, something of belonging. And along the way, she makes a new friend, restores her bond with her sister, and recognizes a new and unfamiliar strength in herself. The stories have changed her.

For more from Keller, read this interview where she explores complex questions of family and stories, and this profound and increasingly relevant commentary on identity:

Everybody’s journey to understanding and inhabiting their identities is a little different, but I think we can all relate to the process of figuring out who we are.

For me, the specificity of being Korean American, and being biracial Korean American, is bridging separate heritages within myself. It’s having a mish-mash of references and not always knowing which culture certain references came from. It’s both the pain of not knowing my grandmother’s native language, and the joy of having a global family.

But the thing about my experience of identity—and of anybody’s experience—is that it’s too vast to contain in one book. When I’m writing a character, I’m writing just one slice of identity, in one moment in time. I draw on my own feelings, but they aren’t my feelings. I’m always trying to interpret these big questions through the lens of my characters—how would they see the world based on their context?

Hopefully readers feel seen when they find similarities in my books. And hopefully the differences provide an entry point for them to think about their own identity and how it diverges from the narrative.

In many ways, Keller's award-winning book is the perfect reflection of today's Newbery, combining a complex and nuanced experience with identity with the power of stories to change us and change the world. Critics of the decision might argue it was the "safe" choice, but I cannot disagree with the honors it has earned.

The Lexicon - Argot

One word, weekly. Found in a book. Shared with you.

Word: Argot

Definition: (n) an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group

Origin: F slang

Source: Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

"Good for them for doing the work," Caroline said. She sounded like therapy speak in a way that made Audrey bristle, but since therapy had saved her, its argot was her default.

Why is this definition so slippery? Does the very phrasing support a continued secrecy, an evasion of meaning that mirrors the meaning of the word itself? I mean, I understand that the dictionary is just a big book of words, but the unnecessary wordiness of this short phrase is remarkable.

Let's start with that word often. Often is used to refer to events or happenings that are regular, perhaps even frequent, but not always. When something is said to occur often, it must be true that sometimes it does not occur. Introducing this word as you attempt to define another word sets the ground moving under our feet. Does the word mean this or does it only most of the time mean this?

The structural integrity of the definition is further weakened by the next phrase: more or less. Though this phrase has been around for centuries, its longevity does nothing to change its vagueness. In fact, one dictionary explains it is "a phrase used to express vagueness or uncertainty." So, five words into this 14-word definition (more than 1/3, for you non-mathematicians), all we know is that we are unsure.

What are we unsure about? I suppose those qualifiers are meant to modify our understanding of the next word -- secret. So, to recap, this word - argot - is vaguely secret or maybe secret most of the time? But secrets are always only sort of secrets, right? I mean, to be called a secret at all, some people have to know about it. And language, unless it's actually encrypted, is never actually unknown or kept hidden. It may be unique to a group, but if it is is locked away, unused, it dies.

But that's what this definition is claiming, sort of. Argot apparently means something is sort of, kind of secret, and what is kept under such hazy lock and key? Ah, yes. Vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group. I'm taking these last 8 words (more than 1/2 of the total, for those playing along at home) together because they are so charmingly redundant and oddly chosen.

For example, why include both vocabulary (the body of words used in a particular language) and idiom (a form of expression particular to a certain group or person)? I suppose the distinction could be useful, especially if you were referring to a subset of language with a full set of "new" vocabulary and expressions where the typical definitions of words are not reflected in the meaning of the phrase. Take the (hideous) phrase "Shoot me an email." At some point in the business or technology sectors, email was part of a new vocabulary, and this idiom did not, in fact, refer to any traditional method of shooting, whether by bow or pistol. So, maybe, maybe, this relatively unnecessary duplication makes sense.

That concession granted, I refuse to support the rest of the clause. Idiom, by definition, refers to specific usage by a particular group. Why are these completely unnecessary words included? And why is peculiar there at all, being as its secondary definition is actually particular???

My only conclusion is that this definition is trying to throw us off its trail, preserving its own argot even as it pretends to define. The first rule about argot is that you do not talk about argot. This is also the second rule.

PS: emily m. danforth's Plain Bad Heroines has been a surprise highlight of my reading year. It's clever and complicated in all the best ways, full of atmosphere and creepiness but nothing that approaches "horror" (a genre I do not prefer), also full of amazing characters involved in multiple distinct plot lines. A deliciously chunky book without an ounce of fat on it, Plain Bad Heroines is everything this definition is not.