Animorphs

The Animorphs book series was a popular series produced in the years 1996-2001 by American author K. A. Applegate. The series consisted of 64 books (54 within the main story arc, 10 books concentrating on separate narrators/story lines) that dealt with themes such as war, death, hope, and teenage life in suburban America.

Plot Summary

Animorphs follows the lives of five American teenagers who are informed of a secret invasion of Earth by an alien species called the Yeerks - parasitic, intelligent slugs who takes over the brain of a host, controlling all movement. Informed by an Andalite (Alien species) named Elfangor, they are then granted the power to transform into any animal whose DNA they acquired.

The group of five teenagers - Jake (the appointed leader), Rachel (the bravest and perhaps riskiest member), Tobias (the outcast who gets trapped in the body of a red-tailed Hawk), Cassie (the moralizing, environmentalist member) and Marco (the "comedian", whose Mother is one of the top-ranked Yeerk hosts) - over the course of the 54 main series books, continue to disrupt Yeerk operations, utilising various animal morphs, in hopes that Andalite forces will arrive to aid in ending the invasion. They are joined early on in the series by a young Andalite named Aximilli, who crash-landed in the middle of the ocean, and later by robotic beings known as "Chee" and a group of freed Hork-Bajir (an alien species previously under full Yeerk control, used throughout the series as the Yeerk shock troops.).

Summary

The series deals with themes that may be considered mature for the targeted age group (9-12 primarily), such as war, death and personal loss. However, the books also display numerous conservative traits such as bravery, self-sacrifice and the ability to prevail even against massive odds. Freedom is probably the biggest theme throughout the series, since the main antagonists of the series achieve their goals by suppressing the freedom of others via directly infiltrating the brain and controlling each and every movement of the body. The main goal of the Animorphs is to free Human hosts already taken by the Yeerks, and stop further infestations and the invasion of Earth (while simultaneously freeing members of species previously invaded by the Yeerks, i.e. Hork-Bajir).

The lines between good and evil are initially clear and distinct, but as the series develops, the moral lines are blurred and characters/species that were initially thought to be wholly bad or wholly good perform acts contrary to how the reader may expect. For example, the Andalites, at first shown to be noble, brave, and expected to be the heroes to one day save Earth, were the ones to initially release the Yeerks in the first place, and further continued to underestimate the Yeerks while they enslave entire races. Towards the end of the series, the Andalites come close to annihilating the Human species in order to slow Yeerk progress, but this is averted by the Animorphs actions.