In the ‘90s, books seemed to be classified as either adult or children’s literature, there didn’t seem to be much in between. These days, there are all sorts of classifications for books for younger readers, from children’s, to middle grade, to young adult, and even new adult. If middle grade had been its own category of fiction back then, a series that surely would’ve been one of the most popular at the library was Animorphs by KA Applegate.
The Animorphs series is about a group of five junior high kids who stumble upon a crashed alien spaceship and its dying pilot, who gives them the power to transform into any animal they touch. And thus, they discover that the Earth is being secretly invaded by a parasitic alien species called the Yeerks that can take any living creature as a host by entering and merging with their brains via the ear canals. Yikes. Over the course of 54 books in the original series and 10 companion books, the story of the Animorphs unfolded until the final book called The Beginning ended the series.
The series comes from author KA Applegate, or should we say, authors. Yes, KA Applegate is actually two people: Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant. But more than that, a good portion of the Animorphs series was actually written by ghostwriters. Applegate and Grant co-wrote the first 24 books published from 1996 to 1998, and had intended to write all of the books themselves, but due to the birth of their first child and a second book series they were also working on taking up a lot of time, they had to have ghostwriters come in and help.
The duo would write up fairly detailed outlines for each book, and a ghostwriter, usually one of their former editors or a writing protege, would then write the actual novel before giving it back to them to tweak. They did come back and write a few more of the books along the way, including the last two books in the series as well as the Megamorphs and Chronicles spinoff books. The ghostwriters did at least receive some credit in each book’s dedication page, so that’s something, anyway.
Each book would feature one of the core Animorphs as the narrator as they went on their adventures, and what you probably remember more than anything else about this book series were the covers. They were so wacky, and honestly could be quite off putting sometimes, as they featured the narrator of that book morphing into a different animal on each cover. The 2010 rerelease of the first eight books in the series with new covers didn’t make things any less creepy — this time, instead of showing the full body morph on the cover, they just showed a half-morphed face on each one. Not any better, guys, not any better.
Though the book series ended in 2001, the Animorphs brand has still been active in the years since, with a film adaptation in development, a new graphic novel adaptation that released its version of the first book in October 2020, and audiobooks that were also released in 2020. Still, the hype that surrounded the original Animorphs book series and its subsequent two seasons as a television show on Nickelodeon have never been matched in the years since, making Animorphs a very ‘90s book series.
Did you read Animorphs? Who was your favorite character? Let us know in the comments!
- In the 1998 Animorphs television series, Shawn Ashmore starred as the leader of the Animorphs group, Jake. You may also know Shawn as Iceman in the X-Men movies and more recently as Lamplighter in the Amazon series The Boys, among many other roles.
- Katherine Applegate, one half of the writing duo who wrote Animorphs, is a Newbery award winner for her 2012 children’s novel The One and Only Ivan.
- Within a year and a half of the first book’s publication, the series had close to ten million copies in print, with publisher Scholastic claiming that the series had a “stronger initial sell-in” than any of its other series up until that time.
- A toy series based on the books was introduced by Hasbro in 1999. But, due to poor sales, the series was discontinued and several toys that were planned to be part of the line were remodeled and released as part of the Beast Wars Mutants line.
- The books could be quite dark and meaningful at times despite all of the goofy scifi jargon, and even featured a main character, Tobias, deciding to stay in the form of a red-tailed hawk forever rather than turning back into his human form.
- In the 1998 Animorphs television series, Shawn Ashmore starred as the leader of the Animorphs group, Jake. You may also know Shawn as Iceman in the X-Men movies and more recently as Lamplighter in the Amazon series The Boys, among many other roles.
- Katherine Applegate, one half of the writing duo who wrote Animorphs, is a Newbery award winner for her 2012 children’s novel The One and Only Ivan.
- Within a year and a half of the first book’s publication, the series had close to ten million copies in print, with publisher Scholastic claiming that the series had a “stronger initial sell-in” than any of its other series up until that time.
- A toy series based on the books was introduced by Hasbro in 1999. But, due to poor sales, the series was discontinued and several toys that were planned to be part of the line were remodeled and released as part of the Beast Wars Mutants line.
- The books could be quite dark and meaningful at times despite all of the goofy scifi jargon, and even featured a main character, Tobias, deciding to stay in the form of a red-tailed hawk forever rather than turning back into his human form.
