| K.A. Applegate: Animorphs! |
So, what is Animorphs? On the surface, this is a children's series about a group of kids who have to secretly fight an alien invasion. Given an extraterrestrial technology that allows them to turn into animals ("morph"), they can use their abilities to both spy on and fight their enemies: the Yeerks, a parasitic species that is literally living inside humans' heads and controlling their every move. Since the Yeerks' invasion is covert, the human kids--dubbed "Animorphs"--have to also fight in secret, which means holding down their lives as normal kids while trying to balance this façade with their lives as warriors. Throughout the series the kids deal with difficult interpersonal relationships, the gritty details of battle, the wonder of alien technology, the morals involved in being good guys, and horrors of war. More specifically, this book series is about Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, and Tobias--the human kids who encounter an alien--and later, their companion Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, an alien who helps them fight. It's as much about the individuals as it is about the overall plot, and unlike most kids' series it does a very good job focusing on both the micro and the macro. By chance they meet a dying alien called an Andalite--his name is Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul--who explains that the Yeerks are invading Earth by taking over humans' minds and living in their heads. To fight them, Elfangor gives the kids morphing abilities by having them touch a piece of Andalite technology, and from there they are on their own because the lead bad guy shows up and actually eats Elfangor right in front of them. They soon have to figure out how to use the morphing abilities, learn how to both conduct surveillance and actually plan missions to battle their enemies, and hope really hard that they can foil the Yeerks' plans for long enough that the Andalite fleet that was fighting them can show up and pick up where they left off. A lone Andalite--Elfangor's brother Aximili--joins their team later, and as they all struggle to win the war in their own ways, they also experience inevitable changes. One becomes a leader. One becomes addicted to battle. One becomes a cunning strategist. One becomes the group's conscience but is frequently forced to go against those very morals. One fights for honor and revenge. And one becomes trapped in a borrowed animal body, forced to live as a bird of prey. These six kids have to deal with the fact that their friends and family have been infiltrated by the enemy and can't be trusted, and they soon see how huge their part is in the fate of the galaxy. Especially since good and evil is not all black and white. . . . Animorphs is rather misunderstood as a series, partly because it is marketed to children and partly because it had a rather sad television show with especially hokey effects. I have no doubt that if the language had been upped a notch and the adolescent-sized paperbacks had been sold instead as twelve or thirteen adult-oriented novels, it would have been accepted by the adult population. Its themes, characters, and plots are on par with much of the adult science fiction out there despite some of the silliness, and some people would be surprised upon reading one of these that they'd ever let their children read them. The language is almost squeaky clean. There is almost no romance. But there is a WHOLE lot of violence (involving people getting killed and dismembered--even the good guys!), graphic descriptions, and above all, the very UN-childish gray areas between good and evil, right and wrong. These books involve lying, stealing, vandalism, car theft, breaking and entering, hostage-taking, threatening the lives of innocents, murder, and genocide. (That's just the list of crimes committed by the good guys, there, though at least they have nightmares about it.) There is a scene in which a main character has her arm chopped off by a bad guy, and responds by grabbing her own severed arm and beating the villain to death with it. Politics, alliances, and loyalties play large parts in the scheme of things. And good guys die while bad guys live. This is not children turning into animals and going on picnics. My page about the books contains a fairly exhaustive set of articles full of information about each Animorphs book. You can get to know the characters and get a feel for how the books flow, but overall I hope the page will mostly be used by fans revisiting the series rather than people who haven't read them before. If the first one sounds interesting, please read the actual books instead of taking my word for it!
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