#0: The Introduction

If this blog post had a cover, it would depict the author morphing into herself as a 12-year-old.

I got into Animorphs relatively late. The first book came out in June of 1996, but I didn't get into it until early summer of 1998. By then, I was almost 12 - already on the outermost edge of the middle grade series' target age group. A friend of mine had previously tried to sell me on the series; I read the first chapter of the first book and thought it was boring and said the name Tobias (which I pronounced TOE-bee-us) was stupid. (It would eventually become - and remains to this day - my all-time favorite male baby name, largely because of this series.)

Some time later, I was sleeping over this same friend's house. To be more accurate, she was sleeping. I had insomnia for some reason. Her family had just moved into a new apartment, and the only book in her room was the recently-released Megamorphs #2: In the Time of Dinosaurs. Unable to sleep, bored out of my skull, and with literally nothing else to read, I decided to give Animorphs another shot.

I stayed up all night reading that book. By the end of the summer, I had devoured all the other Animorphs books and had become an even bigger fan than my friend. For the rest of middle school, Animorphs was basically my life. Going to Barnes & Noble to pick up the new issue became a monthly ritual. My online life revolved entirely around Animorphs fansites and message boards. My introduction to fanfiction and fanart was through Animorphs. Rachel and Tobias were my first OTP. And they kind of still are; to this day I've never been more involved in any fandom.

This book series had a profound, formative effect on me. It was for kids, but didn't talk down to its audience. It had three-dimensional characters, deep political and philosophical themes, and a complex universe that felt authentic and thrilling at the same time. I believe a good portion of my anti-war, environmentalist, and feminist beliefs can be traced back to this series.

K.A. Applegate took the cheesy, overdone premise of kids with superpowers and said, "You know, when you really stop and think about it, these kids are basically child soldiers." And then she ran with that. The Animorphs didn't go to school, save the world, then go to a diner and laugh about their mission over milkshakes. They had PTSD nightmares. They made hard moral decisions, each time wondering where the line was between good and evil, us and them. They gradually realized that there was no line, that their enemies weren't pure evil and their allies weren't pure good, and sometimes saving the world meant doing things that compromised their morality, their sanity - even their humanity. War changed them, and they watched it happen, and it terrified them.

I changed as well. The last Animorphs book came out the spring before I started high school. I finished the series and breathed a sigh of relief that it had ended before I'd gotten officially way too old for it. Because if I'd had to choose between not looking like an idiot at school and continuing to read Animorphs, I would have chosen Animorphs in a heartbeat. I put away "childish things," and started reading more adult fare, along with a few young adult series, like Harry Potter, that were generally considered acceptable for adults to enjoy. I donated my enormous Animorphs collection, along with my enormous Goosebumps collection. Too old. Time to move on.

Many years later, I was in the children's section of Barnes & Noble with my husband and I saw the new, re-released Animorphs with the fancy lenticular covers. I fell in love all over again. I guess a lot of people did, because lately there seems to be a wave of Animorphs re-reads in every format, from Cinnamon Bunzuh! to Opinionated Animorphs to the new podcast Thought-Speak. I eventually read/watched these, and then I discovered that Richard's Animorphs Forum had the entire series available for download.

So now I'm doing my own re-read. I'll see if the books hold up to the quality I remember, examining them with a more critical, grown-up eye. I'll be focusing a lot on political and philosophical themes in the books, as that was what drew me in as a preteen and fascinated me all over again as an adult. I can't promise I'll be as funny or insightful as other re-reads. And I will definitely spoil you, so if you haven't finished the series and don't want to find out what comes next, you probably shouldn't read this. But I hope I can provide a unique perspective on this series that shaped so much of who I am today.

Come back next week for my review of Animorphs #1: The Invasion. Thanks for reading!