It's Animorphing Time: Book 1 - The Invasion

The first book wastes NO TIME with getting the reader in WTF territory.

As a 35 year old man, I did not think that revisiting a series from my childhood would A.) garner so much attention from readers and friends and B.) have me emotionally invested. There was a “haha wouldn’t this be fun” element that I was riding on but then, I read the first book. To be captivated by a wacky ass body-horror, intergalactic war featuring humans morphing into animals seems like, well, a no brainer on paper. There just was a big part of me that was curious how the series would look after so many years (almost 30) and I wasn’t sure I would be INVESTED. Guess what? I’m invested. We will get there. 

Let’s start with Book 1: The Invasion.

The Invasion was released in June of 1996 and was conceived by Katherine Applegate because she loves animals and wanted to make a series based around them in some way. Teaming up with her husband Michael Grant they incorporated a war between alien races. Looking at both of their works since then, it’s obvious Grant introduced the heavy sci-fi elements (look at his GONE series) and Applegate, who would go on to write The One and Only Ivan, was clearly in it for the animals. 

The first alien we meet in the book is an Andalite named Elfangor-Sirinial-Shantal. His ship crash lands in a construction site in front of 5 teens (13-14 year olds) who are on their way home from school. Emerging from the crash, the Andalite is depicted as a centaur-like creature with a sharp blade at the end of their tale. The Andalite talks to the kids in “thought-speak” and warns them of the enemy forces on their way to finish him off. He gifts Jake (the narrator of Book 1), Rachel (referred to as the attractive cousin of Jake), Cassie (the horse-girl), Tobias (bad home-life guy), and Marco (brains) with the Andalite’s ability to morph into any creature they have a DNA pattern for. That is when other ships arrive and we are introduced to the Yeerks and Hork Bajir.  

The Yeerks are a slug-like creature that uses other aliens/people as hosts to do their bidding. Aliens/People controlled by Yerrks are called “Controllers.” Yeerks are required to detach from their hosts and recharge in pools of Yeerk liquid - this is their biggest weak point. The leader of the Yeerks on Earth is Visser Three - a Yeerk who had taken the body of a Andalite. Visser Three kills Elfangor which ends a long-time war but the reader only sees it as the start to the kid’s journey into this violent dynamic. 

“Helping” the Yeerks are the Hork Bajir who are a race that have been enslaved by the Yeerks. They are the muscle and enforcers of the Yeerks' ruling. They look like bird-dinosaurs!

All of this is introduced to the reader in a couple of chapters at the start of The Invasion. It’s wild. One could think this is overwhelming or even bad storytelling bordering on straight exposition but it’s done cinematically and the ideas are presented through showing, not telling. It’s quite remarkable what the authors accomplished in a limited amount of pages and we haven’t even gotten to the MORPHING part yet. 

After escaping with their lives, the 5 kids learn that they can turn into animals if they touch them. What they also soon find out is that their community is filled with Human Controllers who are out to get them so that they can’t spread their powers or information about the Controllers. The book contains an anti-authoritarian vibe throughout most of it. Cops are selected as Controllers as are staff at the school. No one can be trusted and the 5 kids have to essentially trust their intuition about what to do next. 

The middle part of The Invasion focuses on the kids harnessing their powers and watching each other morph, usually in horror. The book depicts these morph scenes not as something COOL but more like HOLY SHIT DOES THAT HURT? The problem we run into early on is that morphing back into a human usually leaves the person naked because it’s not like their clothes morph into a cat with them. Cassie, the horse-girl, finds a loophole by wearing a spandex suit (also just convenient for writers to not make a super inappropriate book of naked children). But it is cool they didn’t bandaid that up immediately - the writers presented it as a real problem that had to be fixed. Early on, Tobias refuses to revert back into a human during a scouting mission at a beach because he didn’t have any clothes with him. This comes back up later  

There is this collective calling themselves “The Sharing'' and Jake’s brother Tom has joined them. Turns out The Sharing is just a meeting where the Yeerks get together to talk about Yeerk-stuff and plan how to take over Earth. The climax of the book has the 5 teens busting into this meeting below the school (big Buffy vibes here tbh) and rescuing Jake’s brother. The rescue attempt does not thwart the evil aliens but causes chaos and sets up Book 2. 

Reading The Invasion highlight reel.

• The kids get euphoric when they are animals with heightened animal senses that turn back into a human unappealing. They only have a 2 hour limit unless they want to be stuck for good. 

• There is a scene where the kids break into the zoo and try to touch all the animals they can so they can use the bodies of a guerilla, tiger, and elephant as combat roles for their rescue attempt. 

• Jake refers to Tobias having a “screwed up family.” Tobias spends his time with his aunt and uncle because his parents are out of the picture. The way Jake mentions it sounds like his dad pimps his mom out or something but it is pretty, uh, normal dynamic. Not the normal but common. 

• Visser Three arriving to kill Elfangor is brilliant and captures the intent of the character and his charisma. Great introduction and I’m excited for more scenes with him.

• On like page 2 Jake is like FUCK MY COUSIN IS HOT BUT I CAN’T THINK ABOUT IT and then I was wondering if the book would be about Jake and Rachel’s incestious relationship. Wild way to start the book. Not really remarked on again.

• Tobias does not morph out of the Red Tail Hawk body before the allotted 2 hours and at the end, is now stuck in that animal’s body. Tobias is also documented as the first human to morph. 

The 2nd book is titled The Visitor and I’m hooked. I know I have to space these out but there was a compulsion to grab the next book to see what happens. It’s odd a middle grade book captivated me in the way it has. I’m ready to see where these 5 characters end up but I have to pace myself.