Tag: Middle Grade

Animorphs #16: “The Warning” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, March 1998

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Jake has made an amazing discovery: a Web site about the Yeerks. Should the Animorphs investigate? If they do, they might walk right into a trap. And if they don’t, they’ll never know if they’re fighting their enemies alone…

Narrator: Jake

Plot: We’re into a section of the series that I only have vague memories of. Yes, I recognized this cover. No, I didn’t remember the craziness within. And now it’s dated craziness as well, so even better! Right away, I had an inkling of what I was getting into when the story started with Jake methodically explaining his online screen name: Bball25. “Bball,” in case you were confused, means basketball! Glad he clarified. The story quickly falls into place after Jake runs an Internet search for the word “Yeerk” and discovers an entire website devoted to discussing the topic.

I’m going to just make a happy little list right here in the beginning of the many, many dated references made in this book.

• bizarre online screen names
• Yahoo (as a relevant thing)
• chain letters
• chat rooms
• limits of 10 words typed in chat rooms
• Internet speeds

And all of that is referenced quite a bit, because the whole story revolves around this website and the Animorphs’ mission to discover how much of it is legit and whether or not it is an elaborate Yeerk trap.

The group decides that while most of the users in the chatroom on this site are the usual Internet crazies, there are a few that seem to actually know what they are talking about. More worringly, one user is concerned that his father may be a Controller and is contemplating confronting him about it. But with nothing but screen names to go on, the Animorphs are stuck. They decide they will need to break into the headquarters of the billionaire techie who owns much of the Internet, essentially, to discover who these users are and whether or not this is a trap or these are real, potential allies. Unfortunately, this headquarters is located far, far away.

To get there, they come up with the rather ingenious plan to morph flies, hop a plane, and simply fly there, free of charge! Perks of being an Animorph, I guess! But this plan quickly falls apart as some of the flight passengers are rather put off by the presence of a swarm of flies on their plane, and Jake gets swatted. The rest of the group has to….gather up pieces of him off the wall, and he barely makes it off the plane to demorph. Breaking into the headquarters, however, does go much more smoothly. For a distraction to allow Marco and Ax (the two most tech-capable of the group) to hack into a database and pull the user info for the chat room screen names, the others morph into their battle morphs and put on a little show for everyone in the building: a grizzly bear with a mop, a tiger with a bucket in its mouth, a hawk flying around above it all. This seems to work, though I do question why they never worried that there might be Controllers working there who would immediately see through this bizarre little scene.

The trip back home goes as well as can be expected, though Jake is still very rattled by his near-death experience. Once home, the team must decide what to do with the list of names they now have: go after the kid who might confront his Dad about being a Controller any day now (Cassie’s primary objective) or break into the mansion of the owner of the website and figure out whether he is a potential ally. Jake decides for the latter, reasoning that the stakes are much higher than the fate of one boy.

Breaking into the mansion, however, proves to be a disaster. The mansion is completely locked down: multiple levels of gates, guard dogs, the works. While in bird morph, they even over hear the guards discussing their boss’s orders to shoot any animals that look “strange.” This just makes their need to know what’s truly going on all the more urgent, so spotting an open window, they decide to fly in, demorph, and check it out. At least, that’s what they want to happen. Turns out that the owner is even more paranoid than they thought and that there are some type of security wards on the windows as well. They only discover this, however, after Rachel has flown threw and lies knocked out (or dead?) in the room within. Ax, too, who was flying close behind her veers away only to get knocked to the ground and dragged off by a guard dog.

The Animorphs are in a state of panic. They weren’t prepared at all for this mission, and it’s showing. Now, down two people, the only goal is to get them back before they’re hurt, killed, or, in Rachel’s case, forced to make the decision to trap herself in morph rather than reveal her human form once two hours have passed.

Desperate, Jake decides the only way in is through. With that in mind, he veers off to The Gardens, quickly acquires a convenient rhino morph, and makes his way back to the group. What follows is a fun little scene of Jake simply smashing his way through everything in front of him. I don’t remember this morph being used too often after this, but the sheer destruction that the rhino leaves in its wake seems to make a good case for its more regular use. The eyesight is pretty bad, though, so I guess that’s why it doesn’t make its way into their regular rotation.

After bashing through everything in his way, Jake and the others finally come face to face with Mr. Fenestre, the billionaire tech wizard himself. They then learn the full truth, and I swear, it’s straight out of a soap opera. Turns out that yes, Fenestre is a Controller (though he implies a sort of partnership between himself and his host body, claiming that with his own superior technical skills, he was able to raise their lives from one of obscurity to the wealth they now both enjoy). But he’s not just any Controller, he’s the “lesser twin” of Visser Three himself. Guys. It’s an evil twin plot line! Though I guess the case could be made for either of them being the “evil” one. Yeerks, however, don’t look kindly on twins, immediately granting one the more privileged life over the other. Not able to make anything of himself and his life in the shadow of his brother, Fenestre turned to making a life for himself in his host body, hence the tech wealth. Visser Three, however, didn’t like this, or any, success by his brother and has been hunting him ever since. Hence why the place is locked down and the guards are to shoot any animal, in case it’s Visser Three in morph.

The Animorphs rightly wonder how he has survived being hunted by Visser Three if he needs to feed in a Yeerk pool once every three days. Fenestre, however, has yet another secret: he’s discovered a way to gain Kandrona rays through another source. Instead of soaking in a Yeerk pool, he simply eats one of his fellow Yeerks, somehow absorbing the Kandrona rays directly from their flesh. So, yes, we now have evil twins AND cannibalism. To do this, he set up the website to attract Yeerk Controllers that he can then track down, extract (you can guess how well this goes for the hosts), and eat at his leisure, thus never needing to leave the fortress that is his house and make himself vulnerable to Visser Three.

The Animorphs are horrified, Cassie most of all at the fate of the human hosts. Jake and the others, however, also see the benefit of a Yeerk who is single-handedly taking out more Controllers than they ever have. Their main priority, however, is still to rescue Rachel and Ax. Fenestre agrees to hand them over and to remain in his mansion forever. Jake warns that if they ever catch him outside of it, they will kill him.

The story ends with the mansion mysteriously burning down days later, though Fenestre does escape alive. Jake doesn’t admit whether this was him, Cassie, or just a happy coincidence that Fenestre is now out in the world again, free to be hunted by them and Visser Three.

Our Fearless Leader: Poor Jake. In all of the other books, we see him as a strong, competent leader who for the most part always makes the right decisions when he needs to. Then we get to his books. And, importantly, we see that these decisions are painful and difficult for him. And, worse, his stories are always the ones where those plans just don’t work so well.

In this book, we got another good look into Jake’s mindset of what it means to be leader and have to make big decisions. We also saw his thought process for what it means in the smaller moments. On the way back from breaking into the tech center, Cassie tells him that it is alright to be afraid and to change the plan from morphing flies due to his near death experience. He ends up getting fairly mad at her saying that the others don’t want him to be the leader who lets them know that it’s ok to be afraid and make different decisions based on that fear. He needs to be the leader that shows that you can push through fear and move forward. He rightly points out that if he began changing missions based on fears, as a group, they would rack up such a list of things that they all had legitimate reasons to fear doing, that they would essentially paralize themselves.

It’s a good moment showing both the thought that Jake has put into his own view of leadership, and showing the weaknesses of Cassie’s view of life. Her empathy is a major strength for the team, but here, we see that her approach is not always right, and Jake fairly harshly calls her out on it.

The last scene where Jake must make a decision about what to do with Fenestre is probably one of the more ethically heavy decision points we’ve seen in the series (the other big one probably being in “The Andalite Chronicles” when they debated flushing the pool of Yeerks into space). As we see with Jake’s ultimate decision, he is beginning to walk down the harsh, but pragmatic, path that many war-time leaders find themselves on. This is good foreshadowing for the Jake we see in the end of the series.

Xena, Warriar Princess: Rachel and Tobias as a pair are the most skeptical of the Yeerk website, both believing it to be a trap and not likely real allies in their fight. Not sure what this says about them both. Other than that, Rachel spends almost the entire last third of the story knocked out as a bald eagle.

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias, as well, is skeptical of the website. This seems pretty in-line with his general less trusting outlook on humanity. He’s the most dedicated to the fight, but he’s the least likely to expect help along the way. I think this makes a lot of sense considering the way he grew up with an aunt and uncle who didn’t care for him at all. Tobias is also probably the most upset when Ax and Rachel are trapped. It’s his best friend and his quasi girlfriend, so this reads true.

Peace, Love, and Animals: In this book, we really see the different perspectives that Jake and Cassie bring to the group. Their conversation about what it means to be a leader was very enlightening both for her own perspective, and, more importantly, to hear Jake’s thoughts on the matter. Further, we see the role of support that Cassie provides Jake. Jake clearly trusts Cassie’s read of people and situations.

However. Towards the end where they learn what Fenestre has been up to, and the fact that the human hosts don’t survive the “extraction” process of the Yeerks from their heads, Cassie goes a bit crazy and tries to attack him. And then the real problems start. She doesn’t agree with the idea of letting him continue, and would obviously rather he die, even if this goes against her general philosophy. This exchange between Jake and her follows:

<What do you expect me to do?> I asked her. <You want to get rid of this

man because he’s evil? Do you want to do it yourself, Cassie?>

<You . . . your morph would do It better,> she said.

<You want me to get rid of him for you?> I asked. <That’s what you want?>

And again! Again I lose all respect for Cassie! Whether I agree with her convictions or not (in this case, she definitely not wrong, though there’s also no right answer here), the fact that she uses the excuse of Jake’s tiger morph “doing it better” to kill this guy rather than bloodying her own hands for her convictions just pisses me off. She’s essentially wanting to dictate the tough choice but make someone else do the dirty work for what that would really mean. It just reads as cowardly and selfish to me. I’d like to think that she burned down the mansion in the end, as a way for making up for this truly horrible moment.

In the end of the book, I did like the fact that she’s the only one who still thought of the boy in the chatroom with the Controller father. She goes to his house in wolf morph and tells him that he can’t trust his father anymore. And this is terrible and soul crushing for her to do, basically taking this child’s faith in his parent away from him to protect him. Another good redeeming moment for her.

But still.

The Comic Relief: At one point, Marco and Jake have a conversation about whether or not they would be able to transition back into “real life” if the war suddenly ended tomorrow. Jake is adamant that this is possible. But Marco, ever the pragmatist, is doubtful that anyone of them could live a normal life after experiencing all they have. And they’re not even halfway through their whole ordeal! It’s even more sad that Jake insists that he could be a “normal boy” again in a book where we’re really beginning to see the toll that leadership is taking on him. The Jake from book 1 would have never imagined leaving a Yeerk Controller alive who is killing human hosts just because he’s also killing off hundreds of Yeerks as well.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Ax plays a crucial role early in the book with his alien tech skillz. Right when the book started and Jake was searching the Internet for the word “Yeerk,” modern-day me was like “No!!!! They can track that!!” But in the very next scene they discuss taking precautions to mask their presence when searching around the chat room and website, and Ax is able to quickly do this. There are a lot of jabs doled out between him and Marco about the backwards earthlings and their rudimentary technology. And then in the last part of the book, he, too, is trapped and missing for most of it.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Jake swatted as a fly! We’ve had a few near-death experiences so far, but the description of just how bad Jake’s situation is…it’s bad. The other Animorphs are literally discussing how to best “scoop” up the remains of his body. As they’re flying away, legs that they are carrying are falling off. They’re concerned that they left behind to much of his body for him to demorph. It’s just terrible.

Couples Watch!: Not a whole lot for either couple. Jake has some good conversations with Cassie, though they are more representative of the different perspectives they each represent in the group than having to do with their relationship. Marco sends a fake message to Jake from “Cassie” in the opening scene which Jake responds to with a funny put-down that he can’t date until his friend Marco gets a girlfriend, which they both know will never happen, so “Cassie” will just have to live with disappointment

However! Jake is with me on the interesting relationship between Marco and Rachel!

Marco and Rachel have a strange sort of relationship. I haven’t figured out whether they pretend they can’t stand each other but secretly like and admire each other, or if they really just can’t stand each other.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Of course Visser Three is the evil twin! And of course he’s been a total ass to his lesser Yeerk brother this entire time. And then of course once the guy gets even a little taste of success Visser Three decides that it’s best to just kill the guy off all told. Not that this brother is really a joy either, but it does seem that he is largely a product of his circumstances. He also claims that he is in some type of partnership with his host body, which is something Visser Three would never even contemplate.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: There weren’t any overtly tragic moments in this book. But this does feel like the beginning of the end for Jake’s ability to exist outside of his leadership role. He has to make so many very tough decisions in this book. His view of leadership, the fact that he can’t really allow himself to even have human emotions, is so sad. And then to see him slowly start down some highly ethically questionable paths…Marco is more right than he knows: none of them can go back, least of all Jake.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: This whole section exists because of the group’s predisposition for not really planning at all. And here we see the results that, statistically, should probably be more common than we see. They did virtually no scouting of the mansion, and then when they tried to infiltrate it through one of the most obvious routes (the window) things go downhill pretty much immediately. They only escape through sheer luck based on Fenestre having very different goals than almost any other Yeerk Controller who could have been holed up there.

Favorite Quote:

“A ‘mix of truth and lies’ is like the definition of the Internet,” Rachel said. “Equal parts reality and delusion.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 7

No score. Not a huge impact either way with this one.

Rating: I really enjoyed this book. I didn’t remember hardly anything about it, but it’s a great combination of funny moments (even more than there were originally with the dated stuff), action scenes (the rhino part is great), and a good introspection into Jake’s philosophy on leadership and where he is headed as a character.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #15: “The Escape” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, January 1998

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Almost nothing could be as bad as finding out your mother is Visser One. The most powerful of all Vissers. The leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. But it happened to Marco. And even though he’s been handling it pretty well, he knew there’d come a time when he’d have to face her again. Knowing that the Yeerk in her brain had taken his mother away.

So when Marco, the other Animorphs, and Ax discover that Visser One is overseeing a secret underwater project, they know they have to check it out. But Marco’s not sure if this is a battle he’ll be able to fight….

Narrator: Marco

Plot: In what is now becoming the usual “save the animals” opening scene of many of these stories, we see Marco and crew in the mall on a mission to morph parrots at the Rain Forest Cafe in an attempt to discourage them using live birds going forward. Obviously, this was Cassie’s plan. After making enough of a nuisance of themselves to get the job done (think parrots spewing vulgarities at customers in line), Marco and Jake run into Erek, our friendly Chee insider, on the way out who informs them that the Yeerks are up to no good. It seems that the Yeerks are trying to take over a world populated by psychic water aliens called Leerans. Obviously, this would be disastrous for the Animorphs, since psychic Controllers could see through their morphs instantly. What’s more, the base of operations, located out in the ocean, deep underwater, is being run by none other than Visser One, Marco’s Controlled mom.

They decide to check it out in dolphin morph. Problem being, Tobias with his new morphing ability, doesn’t have a dolphin morph. This leads to a little scene of them all trekking off to The Gardens where Tobias has to dive bomb a dolphin in hawk morph to try and acquire its DNA. He ends up getting his talons stuck in the dolphin’s skin and is only saved from drowning by a well-timed controlled crash by seagull!Marco.

All morphed dolphins, and Ax as a shark, the crew zero in on the underwater compound. They are quickly surrounded by a crew of hammer head sharks. Bizarrely, the sharks seem to be operating as a pack. Marco, having been almost bit in half by a shark back in book 4, is understandably more panicked than the rest and quickly gets out of there, followed by the others.

Knowing they still need to get into the compound somehow, the Animorphs make their way to the new aquatic center in town which has hammer head sharks. They go at night, but through a few mishaps, Ax is spotted by a Controller guard on duty. They attempt to escape, eventually resorting to having Ax tail swipe away the glass holding in the massive aquarium. Marco barely escapes being eaten by a hammer head, subduing it by acquiring its DNA. The others follow suit.

Marco goes a bit nuts about the fact that he was the first to run back when they were dolphins. The appeal of the fearlessness of the shark overtakes him and he foolishly tries to morph shark in the school pool. He’s interrupted by a pair of bullies who start mocking him and taking jabs at his mom. He’s only saved (from attacking them or discovery) by Jake who shows up and calms things down.

Back in the ocean, this time morphed as sharks, the group make their way into the compound, following the other sharks. They find themselves trapped in a queue that is injecting things into the sharks’ heads that they guess is what the Yeerks are using to control the sharks. Unable to escape, they all are injected as well. It’s only later when they demorph and try to morph fly to more easily make their way around the compound that they realize what’s happened: Yeerk trackers/control devices have been implanted into their heads, preventing them from morphing small animals whose skull cavities can’t fit the tracker. Instantly, somehow getting rid of these trackers becomes the new priority.

The group splits up. Rachel, Cassie, and Jake go battle morph to provide a distraction. Ax, Tobias, and Marco make their way further into the compound to try and find a solution. They discover that there is a fail safe built into the compound that would dissolve the trackers if the compound itself was destroyed. Marco gets discovered by Visser One, but is able to trick her into believing that he is a Controller computer technician who was sent to work on the compound. Escaping from her, he re-joins Ax and Tobias. Ax sets the computer to auto-destruct, and the group re-joins the others to fight.

Visser Three conveniently shows up in a massive snake morph. A mad battle takes place between the Animorphs, the Controllers, and Visser Three and Visser One in the background. A Leeran shows up and tries to tell the Vissers that the morphed beings are humans. Visser One dismisses this, thinking the Leeran has confused Marco’s gorilla morph for a human, since the two are closely related.

Visser One manages to suspend the countdown for the self-destruct, prompting Rachel and Ax to go after her. Rachel is about to kill her when Marco yells for her to stop, admitting that Visser One is his mother. Ax knocks Visser One out instead. Still desperate to destroy the compound, Marco throws a chair through the glass wall, cracking it and sending the Yeerks running for cover.  The Animorphs escape, with Marco thinking he sentenced his mother to death, and now knowing that the entire group will know his mother was/is Visser One. As they swim away, Rachel claims to hear a sub whirring away from the area, possibly containing Visser One. Marco accepts the hope this offers, renewing his drive to fight to free his mother in the future.

The Comic Relief: Have I mentioned that I love Marco books? He just has so much depth as a character. Not only is he just as witty as a narrator as he is as a supporting character in the other books, but there are many real issues that he deals with and brings to his stories, the biggest of which is obviously the struggle with his mother.

But here we also had a few other things that he goes through. One has to do with the fact that he ran first from the sharks. It’s a nice call back to the fact that they all never fully recover from the trauma inflicted on them in all of these fights. He was almost bit in half by a shark; that’s bound to stick with you. And the fact that he is then drawn to the fearlessness of the shark as a way to deal with his insecurities about his own bravery is just excellent.

He’s also very self-aware as a character, and the fact that he’s the most analytical of the group is on full display. Both he and Jake have Controllers in their family, but Marco is the only one who has fully thought out what saving this person would really cost (at least as far as we know, Jake hasn’t mentioned most of this). He goes over the fact that if he saved her the Yeerks wouldn’t just let it go:, they’d be tracked, likely discovered, and the all of the other Animorphs would be discovered and the war lost. Knowing this, even though he fights to save her, he doesn’t know how it will ever be possible.

He also is very practical even through all the pain of confronting his mother, constantly fighting the urge to alert her and reassure her that he’s fighting to save her.

And I’m not someone who does emotional, stupid things. Sometimes I wish I were.

Lastly, when it counts, Marco does the right thing, no matter the personal cost. This practical weighing of odds, of personal issues and the good of everyone else, leads him to destroying the compound, not knowing if his mother will make it out alive. I’m not sure any other character could have done this (maybe Rachel, but she would have done it from a very different emotional place).

As I’ve said before and will probably keep repeating, Marco is the character I would aspire to be in this series.

Our Fearless Leader: There are a few notable moments between Jake and Marco. First, when they all go to The Gardens for Tobias to get a dolphin morph, March impetuously decides to snag a ride on a roller coaster while in seagull morph, pulling Jake along with him. It’s a small moment of pure fun between two best friends. And, in a moment of rare vulnerability afterwards, Marco asks Jake whether they’re still the same, even after it all, deep down. (Clearly he’s also thinking about whether his mom is still his mom even after being a Controller for so many years).

The second moment is the reinforcement of the fact that Jake must be known at their high school as the bully repeller. We know that he saved Tobias from bullying, and when Marco is being made fun of by the bullies at the pool, Jake steps in once again. Jake has to be a fairly popular guy at this school, what with all of these good deeds and his ability to control bullies.

Jake also provides most of the support for Marco throughout this book as the only one who knows the truth about Visser One until the end where it becomes more broadly known.

Xena, Warriar Princess: Rachel doesn’t do a lot in this book, other than be gung ho in her usual semi-crazy way. She’s all for it when Marco suggests splitting into groups with one group morphing battle morphs and providing a distraction.

Naturally, Rachel agreeing with me convinced me I was obviously wrong.

Yeah, right Marco! We’ve seen him base too many decisions on what Rachel decides to do to believe this! In the end, it’s also Rachel who “hears” the sub leaving the collapsing compound (obviously Visser One escapes, but it’s never clear whether Rachel really did hear this or is just providing comfort for Marco), providing hope for Marco that his mother escaped. My secret (not secret) alt-universe shipping of these two continues.

A Hawk’s Life: Poor Tobias and the dolphin incident! Not only is the dude already scared of water, but here he has to somehow acquire a dolphin while in hawk morph! And then gets stuck and ends up going on the worst dolphin roller coaster ride of his life. It’s no wonder that after it all, he’s a bit grumpy. And when Cassie starts fretting about how the dolphin is doing, we get this little exchange:

<Well, as long as the dolphin is okay,> Tobias said. <Because I really, really hope the dolphin is okay.>

<Are you going to be sarcastic the rest of the day?> I asked him.

<Yes. I am going to be sarcastic the rest of the day. I nearly drowned. Now I’m going to go become the thing that nearly drowned me. I will be sarcastic until further notice.>

Sarcastic Tobias is a great Tobias.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Jake seems much more willing to go along on these little side missions when Cassie is the one coming up with them… When they’re all morphed as parrots saying ridiculous things to scare off customers, Cassie comes up with:

“Squuaaakkk! We should be flying free in our native habitat!”

Because of course she does. She, along with Marco, proves yet again that she’s one of the two more perceptive members of the group, quickly picking up on Tobias’s lack of enthusiasm to morph dolphin and his fear of water.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Marco’s introductions of characters are always the best of all the narrators. With Ax, we first meet him when he’s in human morph during the parrot mission, and Marco describes him and his food obsession thusly:

Ax would trade a Cinnabon for the Mona Lisa, straight across.

Ax also has a lot of knowledge about the Leeran race. He hacks the computer in the underwater compound to set it to auto-destruct, all while, of course, making many arrogant Andalite comments about superiority and such.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The bit when Marco starts morphing fly and experiencing head pain, only to see Rachel shrinking and the device pushing through her head. Ick.

Couples Watch!: Not a whole lot. Towards the end, when the group is split up in the underwater compound, Tobias is pretty stressed about the delay in accessing the computer, snapping at Ax to hurry up so that they can join Rachel and the others who they can hear fighting in their battle morphs. He’s clearly worrying about her.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: The Visser drama continues! Visser One and Visser Three’s ongoing bitch fight is always a joy. Here, Marco essentially describes the complete and utter bizarreness of the scenario in the underwater compound when these two run into each other. There’s a massive battle going on all around them between “Andalite warriors” and their Controller underlings, but all they care about is sniping at each other in the middle of the room.

Also, when Marco is in is one-on-one with Visser One posing as a Controller computer technician, he claims that Visser Three killed the other three technicians who were supposedly meant to be accompanying him. Visser One is not at all surprised that this could be the case. Clearly, Visser Three has a bit of a reputation in this area.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Marco books always deliver a big dose of the sads. For some reason, his mother being a Controller always strikes me as more tragic than Jake’s brother. Probably because Marco already grieved her death, and then got her back in the worst way, knowing she’s a Controller for Visser One. Here, when Marco is alone with Visser One, he has to fake being a Controller himself. At one point, the Visser comments that Marco needs to get better Control of his host body; her host is currently screaming and crying in her head, but she still has complete Control. This is so tragic because not only does poor Marco’s mom have to deal with being Controlled by Visser One, but she now thinks her son has been taken as well. This just has to sap away whatever small bits of hope remain to her.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!:  It’s not so much a terrible plan, as an “obviously flawed, but necessary course of action.” This is the first time we’re really seeing the challenges posed by Tobias’s new morphing ability and the fact that he needs to acquire DNA as a hawk. So, the dolphin was always going to be a problem. What I don’t get is why the hell they decided to go about this in broad daylight with a park full of people?? In the past, they’ve often snuck into The Gardens at night to get their morphs. So why they would choose to do this, the most obtrusive DNA acquisition they have ever attempted, in the middle of the day is beyond me.  Actual quote from the book right as Tobias is dive-bombing the poor dolphin:

<Um … is this stupid?> Cassie asked, way too late.

Favorite Quote:

This is a really long quote, but it’s probably the one and only quote that I’ve always remembered from this series and even referenced a few time over the years. I knew it was in a Marco book somewhere, so I was thrilled to see it pop up here:

See, I’ve always believed that to some extent you get to decide for yourself what your life will be like. You can either look at the world and say, “Oh, isn’t it all so tragic, so grim, so awful.” Or you can look at the world and decide that it’s mostly funny. If you step back far enough from the details, everything gets funny. You say war is tragic. I say, isn’t it crazy the way people will fight over nothing? People fight wars to control crappy little patches of empty desert, for crying out loud. It’s like fighting over an empty soda can. It’s not so much tragic as it is ridiculous. Asinine! Stupid! You say, isn’t it terrible about global warming? And I say, no, it’s funny. We’re going to bring on global warming because we ran too many leaky air conditioners? We used too much spray deodorant, so now we’ll be doomed to sweat forever? That’s not sad. That’s irony. Note to Alanis: That is ironic. Humor kind of breaks down when the tragedy gets up close and personal.

On a more light-hearted and brief note, Marco had this to say to Erek in the beginning when he and Jake agreed to do something about the Yeerks’ goals to capture the Leerans:

I shrugged. “We like to keep busy. It’s either rescue entire races or play Nintendo.”

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 7

A point for the Animorphs…I guess? I mean, they mostly destroyed the compound to simply undo the head implant situation that they foolishly got themselves into, but it was still a blow against the Yeerks.

Rating: Loved it! There was so much great character building stuff for Marco, and now the secret of his mother is out to the rest of the group, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out going forward.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #14: “The Unknown” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, January 1998

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: There’s a new rumor in town. Someone has discovered an item that proves life on other planets exists. And they’ve been hiding it on a base called Zone 91. The Most Secret Place On Earth.

Cassie, the other Animorphs, and Ax already know about life on other planets. Too well. They also realize the Yeerks will try to access Zone 91 to find out if what’s there will threaten their mission. So the Animorphs decide to pay Zone 91 and the Yeerks a little visit. But what they discover is not at all what they expect.

Narrator: Cassie

Plot: As we know from my last rant, ahem, I mean, review, I have some struggles with Cassie books some times. But, while this book continues the tradition of giving Cassie some of the more stupid missions, we were at least spared the awful drama and holier-than-thou whining that ruined the last Cassie book for me. In fact, this book was a lot of fun…when it wasn’t being entirely stupid.

Through a mall-trip-related deal, Cassie convinces Rachel to travel out with her and her dad to the Dry Land (a nearby semi-desert area) to check out a sick horse. But this isn’t a normal horse. In fact, this horse seems to be trying to make a phone call using a paid phone booth! What’s more, Cassie and Rachel see a Yeerk squirm out of the horse’s ear (the horse is clearly suffering from a snake bite), and then almost get shot by Dracon beams.

Returning to the other Animorphs the next day, they convince the very skeptical group that the bizarre horses really are worth checking out. Understandably, the group can’t seem to figure out why Yeerks would want to Control horses of all animals. Maybe it has something to do with the nearby Zone 91, a military base rumored by conspiracy theorists to host proof that aliens exist (I see what you did there, Applegate).

Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias decide to check it out. In an unfortunate bit of timing between morphs, Cassie, Marco and Rachel are captured by a military patrol and brought into the base. They only escape by morphing cockroach while the man in charge, Captain Torrelli, is away checking out their names and numbers. Somehow he doesn’t get the fact that “Fox Mulder,” “Dana Skully,” and “Cindy Crawfod” (Cassie really sucks in the lying department) might, MIGHT, be fake names. After escaping the building, and in Cassie’s case, proving that roaches can survive anything after being run over by a tank, the group witness a herd of horses with a particularly modest horse that moves to be behind a bush while it does its business. (And here we have the first example of what is an unfortunate trend for this book. Potty humor. Never fear, I will point out the other examples as we go!)

Now convinced that something is up with the horses here, the group decide that they should morph horses themselves to try and figure out why exactly Yeerks would be doing this. What follows is a bizarre escapade at a racing track where somehow Cassie ends up morphing a famous race horse (Minneapolis Max!) and winning a horse race. Ultimately, they all get horse morphs and fly back to the desert to join the herd of the horse!Controllers.

The Yeerks seem to have the brilliant plan that going in as Controlled horses they can discover what information, if anything, the humans have on any alien lifeforms on Earth. To do this, they decide to simply charge into the base as a herd of horses. The Animorphs join in and they discover some strange alien contraption that neither the Yeerks nor the Animorphs recognize. Heading back into the desert, the herd is intercepted by a Yeerk Bug Fighter and none other than Visser Three himself checking on how the mission went. After being displeased with the results, he decides that they should go with Plan B and infest some humans that work on the base. He also is displeased with the presence of other horses with the group, thinking they could be Andalites in morph. Cassie decides to take a dump as a way to convince them that they’re just regular horses. (Potty humor again!) When this doesn’t work, they simply run away, only escaping when some officers from the base show up and the Yeerks retreat rather than expose themselves.

On the way home, Ax reveals that he actually did know what the strange alien artifact was: a primitive Andalite toilet. So yes, the whole crux of this little story is centered around a LITERAL TOILET.

Through shenanigans, Cassie realizes that the Yeerks will likely try to infest Zone 91 officers while they’re at a company day trip to The Gardens. The Animorphs show up, get chased around through a log ride by Captain Torrelli who recognizes Cassie and Marco as “those punk kids.” Finally, they find the Yeerks camped out in the Horror House. They’re just standing around pretending to be part of the ride, including Visser Three himself. The Yeerks nab the Captain, and the Animorphs morph their battle morphs and give chase through the Horror House, and then, conveniently, into a parade. For some not super clear reason, the Yeerks pretty much let Captain Torrelli get away and fly off. Somehow all of this is hand waved away by the general public as “just part of the amusement park.”

So…there you have it. There were several really fun scenes tied up in all of this nonsense. We get a whole chapter of the kids at school, which is always fun. There were some good character moments with Cassie and her parents. And, tone wise, this book was very, very funny.

But beyond all of that, it’s just dumb. The whole horse!Controllers idea doesn’t make any sense given how we’ve seen the Yeerks operate in the past. The campy nonsense at The Gardens is completely wacky. And the fact that the whole thing ends with the Animorphs pretty much hand-waving the threat to Captain Torrelli away as “well, now he’ll be on his guard” is ridiculous. The Yeerks could take control of him at any time! Beyond all of this, the central conflict is around an Andalite toilet. The stakes…they are not high or interesting in this book.

Actual quote from the book:

We had done some very important things as Animorphs. We had fought
some terrible and vital battles. This wasn’t one of them.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie, herself, is much more tolerable in this book. Part of it has to do with the fact that she hangs out with Rachel quite a bit in this story, and their friendship and banter is always enjoyable. Her relationship with her parents remains as one of the more fully developed families in the series. She has a few moments where she again reverts to her “this is all my fault!” whininess, but for the most part it was much more toned back from her last book.

Bizarrely, for a character that is often really smart in other books, she has some seriously dumb moments here. I mean, it was just a book or two ago when she morphed Rachel and was able to lie straight to a Controller’s face in a much more high stakes moment. But here, she has tons of issues coming up with a lie at the base with Rachel and Marco (Cindy Crawford??) and then messes up understanding military time when they try to disrupt the Yeerks’ plan at The Gardens. Seems out of character for her.

Another huge misstep she makes is while she’s at the race track and somehow ends up in the race itself, she goes and thought speaks to the jokey! Why??! What if he was a Controller! The Animorphs never do this for a reason, and it’s such an inconsequential moment, that’s it’s completely inexplicable why she would choose to break this rule now.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake doesn’t do much in this book. He plays his usual leader role, gets exasperated at the banter when they go off topic, and repeatedly tells Ax to stop calling him “Prince.”

Xena, Warriar Princess: As I said, there’s a lot of fun Cassie/Rachel friendship moments. In exchange for going out to the desert with Cassie and her dad, Rachel gets to take Cassie shopping for outfits. Then they go to school and Rachel is massively disappointed by the fact that no one notices. In fact, poor Cassie only gets talked to after boys come up to Rachel first, and then they forget Cassie’s name calling her “Kendra” and “Carla.” In desperation, Rachel pays Marco two dollars to make a scene over Cassie in the next class. Something he plays up quite a bit. These are the type of very fun “real world” scenes that we don’t get often, but are great fun when we do.

A Hawk’s Life: It’s super fun having Tobias around for more of this book! He gets to plan with the group while in his “human morph” at the mall. And then gets to morph horse along with everyone else, too. It’s explained that since hawk is Tobias’s “true form” now, that he has to acquire all of his morphs as a hawk. We miss out on the scene of how this worked out with the horses.

The Comic Relief: Marco gets in a lot of fun quips about “modest horses” and “phone call making horses” etc etc. He also proves to still be the most canny member of the group when he, Cassie and Rachel are captured at the base. While there, he insists on asking about aliens and generally making out like a conspiracy theorist. When they escape and Rachel and Cassie challenge him on this, he says that that’s the only way they would be dismissed. Three regular, sane kids out there without shoes are a real question. Three crazy kids…well, they’re crazy.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: While the group are morphed horses, Ax is able to understand the Yeerks because they are talking Galard, some universal alien language. Another stupid thing about this book: it never really says how the Yeerks are “talking” at all while in the body of a horse. If I’m not mistaken, horses don’t have the most advanced vocal cords…

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: At once point while morphing, Cassie gets to see her hand as just bones. Fun!

Couples Watch!: Not much of anything here. When Cassie comes home late from their mission, her parents make a point of embarrassing her, asking if she was out on a date with Jake. It’s another nice human moment in the book.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: I seriously don’t buy the fact that Visser Three would show up at The Gardens and pretend to be a part of the Horror House ride. It just seems like something that he would consider so beneath him. And really, wouldn’t it me? I mean, come on, the guy is the third most powerful Yeerk in the Empire! Does he really need to come along on the infestation mission of one little human Captain??

He does have this moment, though, when he meets up with the horse!Controllers and is upset with their findings (the fact that they didn’t know what the alien artifact was) and kills one of them in a fit of rage:

<Fools! Idiots! Incompetents!> the Visser screamed in enraged thought-
speak. <Weeks have been wasted setting up this effort. First we lose that
clumsy fool, Korin Five-Four-Seven, when he was bitten by a snake. And
now we’ve lost poor JillayNine-Two-Six!>
The Visser indicated the no-longer-in-one-piece horse-Controller, like it
had been someone else’s fault he’d been lost.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Can I cry at the sheer stupidity and at the fact that the book is pretty much potty humor wrapped up in an Animorphs story??

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: This time it’s the Yeerks with the terrible plan! I mean, come on! Why, oh why, would they Control horses to check this place out? At no point in this series have we ever seen the Yeerks hesitate to just infest whomever is convenient. And they’ve already gotten thousands of people, so it’s not like it’s even that hard for them to do. This just makes absolutely no sense. And the plan to capture the guy while at The Gardens is almost as stupid, too! Yes, let’s make a huge scene with Visser Three and Hork Bajir running around to capture this one guy while in the middle of a crowded theme park! Yes, that is the way to keep aliens on earth a secret (the apparent reason they’re so interested in getting a hold of the artifact in Zone 91 in the first place!) So stupid. Visser Three himself admits that Plan B was better:

“We still have the backup plan. It was always the better plan. We’ll simply
take control of a few of the humans working at this base.”

No one knows why this was ever the “backup plan.”

Favorite Quote:

The level of exasperation behind Marco’s comment in this quote pretty much sums up my feelings about the plot of this entire book.

<You’re telling me the Most Secret Place On Earth, the fabled Zone
Ninety-one, the Holy Grail of conspiracy nuts, is hiding the secret of an
Andalite toilet?> said Marco.
<Only a very primitive model,> Ax said condescendingly. <Since those
days there have been huge technological improvements.>

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 6

NO POINTS FOR ANYONE! BAD YEERKS! BAD ANIMORPHS!

Rating: So, the plot for this one was pretty stupid. But there was a lot of really fun “real world” moments that we don’t often get, and there were a lot of really funny lines and running jokes, so much so that I actually still very much enjoyed reading it. The rating would then be somewhere in the middle. Not great, but its saved by a few things from being a complete disaster.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #13: “The Change” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, December 1997

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Tobias has pretty much gotten used to his life. He’s a red-tailed hawk with the mind of a kid. It was weird when he first got trapped in morph. But now it’s almost okay. After all, how many kids actually get the chance to fly?

Now Tobias is about to make a very special choice. A choice that the other Animorphs and Ax know nothing about. And it could mean the difference between being a hawk…and being human…

Narrator: Tobias

Plot: Yay! Another Tobias book! It’s been forrreeevvveerrr since we’ve had one from him; all the way back to book 3! Though with “The Andalite Chronicles,” we now have a lot more information on him. I can’t remember how Tobias learns of this history, but alas, it isn’t in this book.

I always love the Tobias books. He’s such a unique narrator, with very different challenges and points of view on the Yeerk war from his fellow Animorphs. He also has the “angst” side of the series nailed down pretty good. Starting off this book, we learn that Tobias has been using all of his extra time (just regular ole bird time and, we learn, guilt-driven extra work he has given himself due to his inability to participate in many of the missions) to follow known Controllers around and scout out as many of the entrances to the Yeerk pool as possible. Cuz doing something about that nightmare place is still, as ever, on the long list of Animorphs “to-dos.”

Along with Rachel (of course) in eagle morph, he tries to show her his most recent find, an entrance that is located in a car wash, only to repeatedly find himself on the edge of the forest, no where near his intended destination. Strange that Tobias could get lost! But before they can worry about it too much, they notice something even more bizarre: two Hork Bajir fleeing through the forest being chased by human Controllers on motorbikes. Very quickly they realize that these must be Yeerk-free Hork Bajir and decide to help them escape, leading them (well actually, only the one, as one trips and falls and must be left behind) as birds using thought-speak to a nearby cave.

They meet up with the others in Cassie’s barn to decide what to do . They have no idea, so they end up going back to the cave to see if the Hork Bajir himself has some thoughts on the matter. Let me just insert this note here: the Hork Bajir were hilarious in this book. It is clear that, as a species, they’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, but this played for great comedic bits while also being balanced by a level of sincerity and honesty that just makes them completely adorable, killer blades and all (which we find out are actually for harvesting bark off trees, which is what they eat, never for battle).

While learning more from the Hork Bajir, named Jara Hamee, they realize that the Yeerks are once again closing in on them. Rachel morphs Jara Hamee to serve as a distraction as the others lead him away. Tobias, cuz he’s still (always) all angsty about his lack of participation, rides along on her shoulder. Suddenly, however, he somehow finds himself up in the sky again, miles away from Rachel and the others. There he spots the other Hork Bajir who has been trapped by the Controllers and Visser Three himself. Tobias is able to dive bomb Visser Three and lead the second Hork Bajir (we learn her name is Ket Halpack) back to safety with the others. Things continue to get strange when while they discuss what to do with Ket and Jara, Tobias suddenly has an image pop into his mind of a hidden valley in the mountains where they could be safe. Problem is, he’s never been there or heard of this place before.

The rest of the Animorphs head home, and poor Tobias ends up having to continue to trek through the dark with Jara and Ket, trying to keep out of the grasp of the Controllers who are still searching for them. At a certain point, he discovers that Jara and Ket only escaped because they “heard a voice in their head.” At this point, Tobias throws his hands in the air, figuratively of course, and calls a halt until someone explains what the heck is going on. Of course, it’s the Ellimist, our all-powerful friend who “never meddles” (read: always meddles) once again trying to save a species from extinction. In exchange for his continuing help, the Ellimist agrees to grant Tobias “what he most wants.”

The others join him the next day and their flight from the Controllers becomes even more desperate. Throughout all of this, Tobias still has to deal with realities of being a bird who needs to hunt and eat. Not only does he barely avoid being eaten by a bobcat, but when he spots helicopters chasing after his friends (who are all out in the open in their human form, trekking up a mountainside), he gets buffeted out of the air, breaking a wing on his way down. Things only get worse when a racoon spots him and decides to drag him off as a lunchtime snack. The Ellimist then decides to pop up and grant his wish, but instead of turning him back to a human boy, as he expected, the Ellimist simply gives him back his morphing ability. He’s able to morph the racoon, escape, morph back to a bird and warn his friends.

In the last action sequence of the book, Tobias hatches a desperate plot to trick the Controllers into thinking the Hork Bajir are dead. He and Rachel more the Hork Bajir, lead the Controllers on a merry chase to a ravine, and then, one at a time, jump off, only to be caught by gorilla!Marco in a cave on their way down. Below, the real Jara and Ket pose as dead and being eaten by wolf!Cassie and wolf!Jake.

In the final chapters, Tobias is bumming about not being a boy again. But when sleeping in his meadow, the Ellimist brings him back to the night before he walked through the construction site with his friends. Bird!Tobias tells past!Tobias to make sure to go with the others on his way home, and to let him perch on his arm for a bit, thus acquiring his own DNA. In the end, he is still a bird, but now able to morph himself, which he does to attend an awards ceremony for Rachel, which results in a very adorable “meet cute.”

A Hawk’s Life: Much of Tobias’s internal monologuing has to do with the fact that he’s been unable to participate in almost all of the missions lately. In his first book, he had to deal with the fact that hawk, but here, we see the real cost is his lack of morphing ability. As is evidenced by my last several reviews where this section got maybe one sentence of something like “Tobias was asleep” or “Tobias had to fly off” or “Tobias scouted from above,” it was becoming pretty obvious that something was going to need to be done about this situation. In this book we hear about how much this has been tearing Tobias up inside, especially when he comes up with plans that require putting his friends in danger, like the plan that involves Rachel morphing the Hork Bajir and leading the Controllers away. Giving him back his morphing ability, but still keeping him trapped as a bird is just excellent writing. I mean, now he will have even more drama, because technically he could be human again if he wanted, but he’d have to stay in his human “morph” and become “trapped” that way, thus losing his morphing ability once again.

Our Fearless Leader: There was some fun stuff towards the final act of the book where Tobias and Jake switch roles, essentially. Tobias comes up with the entire plan to fake the deaths of the Hork Bajir, and then, new morphing ability in hand, takes on a lead role in the plan itself. Jake ends up scouting from above as a bird and pulling off Tobias’s signature “swoop and save” to get Tobias and Rachel out of a tight spot at one point. It is worth noting that this sequence with the planning and direction-giving from Tobias highlights something new: of them all, if Jake wasn’t around, I think Tobias might have been the next natural choice as leader. Rachel’s too reckless. Marco’s too prone to sarcasm to be taken seriously when it counts. Ax is an alien. And Cassie’s….Cassie. Tobias shows his strengths as a strategist, and it’s telling that everyone easily follows his directions and agrees with his plans from the start.

Xena, Warriar Princess: Immediately, it’s nice to see Tobias’s evaluation of Rachel. In the first few pages when he’s introducing all of the characters, he mentions that Rachel is brave to the point of being reckless. And that’s part of the reason he likes her. For the others, Rachel’s reckless bravery is often seen as something to be mildly concerned about (perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly), but it’s nice to see that Tobias, at least, likes her just as she is, recklessness and all. Rachel gets a lot of action in this book. When they first discover the fleeing Hork Bajir, she’s the one to decide that they need to help, reasoning that “an enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and thus setting the whole thing into motion. She also is the first to morph Hork Bajir, and Marco notes that this morph reflects Rachel as she is inside, a powerful killing machine. And, obviously, in the end of the book she’s part of the bait-and-switch with Tobias.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie doesn’t get a whole lot to do in this book. She participates in the plans, but doesn’t have many stand out moments. Though when they first meet up as a group early in the book, she’s the one Animorph other than Tobias who really catches on to the strangeness of him and Rachel getting “lost” while flying.

When Tobias is first introducing the team to the reader, he describes Cassie thusly:

More like she’s part of something bigger than herself. Like she’s some
living extension of the earth… Like some gentle soldier in the service of nature itself. Corny, isn’t it?

Yes, Tobias, it is corny. And accurate, which is part of what makes Cassie so insufferable much of the time. Though, to be fair, she was fine in this book, and even had a cute scene where she was lecturing Marco about “having fun in nature” as they hiked through the mountains with Jara and Ket, leading them to the valley.

The Comic Relief: Marco, too, doesn’t have too much in this book. Even his quipping felt a little less than what I’ve come to expect (though not surprisingly, his best moments came in banter bits with Rachel). However, he does play a crucial role in the final plan by catching Rachel and Tobias as a gorilla when they jump on the cliff. Talk about performing under pressure. His friends’ lives were literally in his hands.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Ax helps Tobias guard the Hork Bajir overnight in the woods while the others go home. There are some bits of history we gather from conversations between the two of them about the Andalites and the Hork Bajir. Mostly it’s more Andalite arrogance about their superiority to the dumb Hork Bajir. But, as always, said in the most endearing Ax-ish way.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: It’s not so much body horror, but the bit where Tobias is getting dragged away by the racoon who has hold of his broken wing, and then is getting washed in the creek in preparation for being eaten alive…pretty horrific. The whole little scene really highlights how terrible Tobias’s life as a hawk is. His broken wing would be the death of him without the Ellimist. We’ve gotten used to the fact that the others can morph away injuries, but here, Tobias is not only crippled, but he’s completely defenseless, out of reach of his friends, and would have been racoon chow if not for all powerful beings showing up.

Off topic, but there’s some fun stuff when he does get his morphing ability back and we remember what it was like for the others to just learn how morphing works for the first time. Tobias had only morphed a cat and the hawk before he became trapped and that was all the way back in book one. Here, he even runs along as a racoon for quite a while before realizing that he can morph back to the bird and his wing would be healed. I really liked this kind of attention to character detail.

Couples Watch!: This is more like it! Unlike Rachel’s last book, we got all the cute middle grade crush feels. Tobias out-and-out tells Rachel that it’s really important how she thinks of him. And there’s this entire side plot where Rachel has been awarded a prize as an outstanding student at school, which Tobias only discovers after seeing her carrying around a piece of paper announcing a ceremony that is coming up. Of course, he can’t go as a bird, and there’s lots of feels about it, cuz clearly Rachel would value his being there over everyone except maybe Cassie. And then, of course, there’s the adorable moment in the end when he surprises her by showing up in his brand new human morph. It’s all quite cute.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three only shows up for a bit, and shockingly, doesn’t pull some strange alien morph out of his hat. When Tobias first describes Visser Three, he says this:

[He looks like a regular Andalite] but there is some dark, evil glow that shines from within him.

That’s our Visser, emanating evilness like a glow lamp.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: This one isn’t quite as tragic as Tobias’s first outing as a narrator. But nothing can really beat attempted teen suicide by mall skylight, right? But we do get quite a bit about how hard it’s been on him watching his friends go into danger and the self-loathing this has brought about. Also, in the end, when he thinks that he’s only been given his morphing ability back sans human boy, it’s quite sad. He ends up avoiding both Rachel and Ax, his two closest friends, because he’s too busy feeling sorry for himself. And you can’t even blame him for it.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: They actually had really great plans this entire time! That last plan to fake the deaths was brilliant. So much attention to detail with even having the morphed wolves pretend to eat the “bodies” to prevent the Controllers from feeling that they needed to dispose of the bodies. Maybe Tobias should plan all of their missions. Or him and Marco combined; I’m pretty sure the two of them paired up are the dream planning team.

Favorite Quote:

First, the obligatory cuteness quote, after the Rachel book’s disappointing lack of couple-times:

<Good. Because, you know, how you think about me is sort of important.>
I winced. I’d sounded way too sincere. I mean, what was I thinking? Rachel’s a human. A real human. I’m a hawk. You think Romeo and Juliet were doomed, just from being from families that didn’t like each other? Well, you can’t get any more doomed than caring for someone who isn’t even the same species.

And, obviously, Rachel/Marco banter, after Cassie throws a snake at Marco and scares him after he had been wondering how to tell a Hork Bajir female from a male and theorizing that the girls were afraid of snakes:

Even Marco had to laugh. “Oh, that was so not fair. Funny, yes. Fair,

no. Can we please act more mature here?”

“Sure, Marco,” Rachel said. “Why don’t you leave and we’ll automatically

be a more mature group?”

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 6

A point for the Animorphs! Saving the Hork Bajir is a definite win, and if I remember correctly, these two and their hidden valley show up several times throughout the rest of the series, so it’s a win that continues to count.

Rating: I always love the Tobias books, and I was waiting expectantly for this one, not only because I love the adventure of this story, but because I knew it was the game changer for getting Tobias back into the action of the rest of the books going forward.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs 12.5: “The Andalite Chronicles” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, January 1998

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: His name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.

An Andalite war-prince. The one who gave five young humans the ability to morph into any animal they touch. They are still out there, fighting an evil so powerful there isn’t a moment that goes by when they can actually feel safe. Their story continues.

But this is how it all began…

Narrator: Elfangor

Plot: This book is twice as long as a usual Animorph book, so strap in for a long post folks!

Similarly to how we first met his little brother Ax, we find Elfangor aboard an Andalite Dome ship, an aristh eager to prove himself. When the Dome ship comes across a Skrit Na raider ship, Elfangor and his fellow aristh, Arbron are tasked to board it, as they are small enough to navigate the cramped quarters. Aboard, they discover two human kids, a girl named Lauren and a boy who goes by his last name…Chapman. After rescuing the humans, Elfangor and Arbron are re-assigned to travel with disgraced War Prince Alloran, who long ago fought in the Hork Bajir wars, and return the two humans to Earth. On the way, Elfangor bounds with Loren, noting many of the quirky facts about humans such as their “artificial hooves” (sneakers), their amazing arm strength (the ability to lift their whole body off the ground), and the fact that they don’t eat through their feet, but with their mouths!

I spoke like I would to a child. Obviously, this species was primitive. They didn’t even have tails.

He is less a fan of Chapman who is just a jerk in every way and takes the time to drop this little nugget early in their relationships:

At least that’s my motto: Grab what you can.”

Charming. On the way, Arbron uses science to somehow discover that another Skrit Na radar ship had escaped and was carrying a mythical and powerful machine, the Time Matrix. Desperate to recover it before it can be sold to the Yeerks, they change course for the Taxxon home world, a favorite buyer for the Skrit Na.

Upon arrival, Elfangor, Arbron, and Alloron morph Taxxon to scout out the planet and locate the Time Matrix, leaving Loren and Chapman aboard the cloaked ship. Their plans fall apart, however, when they are separated by the chaos of a Taxxon feeding frenzy (the Taxxon morphs has very strong instincts of constant, almost debilitating, hunger). It is after escaping this mess that Taxxon!Elfangor is captured by a Sub-Visser Seven Hork Bajir Controller who immediately lays forth his plan to force Elfangor to demorph so he can be the first Yeerk with an Andalite body. When he refuses, he is pushed out of the ship and only escapes by morphing an Andalite home world bird. Flying around, he sees their original ship land and Chapman emerge saying he wants to “strike a deal” with the Yeerks. He happens to know of a world with a bunch of sentient beings who could be great Controllers.

Re-morphing Taxxon, he stumbles upon Arbron, still in Taxxon morph as well. Together they locate the Skrit Na ship that holds the Time Matrix and bluff their way on claiming they are there for repairs and are able to steal it. While flying away, Elfangor discovers that Arbron is stuck in Taxxon morph. Arbron attempts to force Elfangor to kill him with a Dracon beam, but when Elfangor resists, the Dracon cuts a hole into the ship resulting in a crash landing. Elfangor awakes alone. He steals a Mustang (the car was also scavenged from Earth by the Skrit Na), and races back to the space port. On the way, he is captured by a hive of Taxxons where he finds Arbron. Turns out there are some Taxxons still resisting the Yeerks. They plan an attack, lead by Arbron who has an Andalite’s knowledge of the Yeerks.

The attack itself quickly falls into madness due to the Taxxons’ hunger issues. It is all Elfangor can do to hold off Arbron from attacking the two humans when they find them. They are almost overwhelmed by Hork Bajir Controllers when Hork Bajir!Alloran shows up to save the day be taking Sub Visser Seven captive as leverage to get back on their own ship and leave. Arbron, however, refuses to come, saying that he has no life with Andalites anymore, and returns to the Taxxons.

In space, Alloran forces the Sub Visser Seven to jump to his death from the ship and then orders Elfangor to destroy a cargo ship full of Yeerks in their transport pool. Elfangor refuses, saying it is dishonorable to kill helpless Yeerks. During their disagreement, Chapman attacks a distracted Alloran and knocks him out. Elfangor lands back at the wrecked Skrit Na ship to retrieve the Time Matrix. It is only after he off the ship that he questions Chapman’s behavior and realizes that both he and Loren have been made into Controllers. He races back, but it’s too late and the unconscious Alloran has been taken over. Sub Visser Seven reveals that the Hork Bajir Controller had only been posing as him. Elfangor is able to stun Sub Visser Seven, leaving him behind, and flying away from the Taxxon world.

Loren’s Yeerk chooses to depart Loren rather than starve to death on the promise that Elfangor will freeze it and expel it into space, which he does. Elfangor and Co. fly aimlessly around Zero Space for a few days, as he knows that the Yeerks likely placed a tracker on their ship and that once they come out of Zero Space they’ll quickly be found. He navigates them to the location of the original Dome ship, hoping that the added forces will be enough to combat the Yeerks.

When they come out of Zero Space, they discover that the Dome ship is under attack by strange asteroid creatures that essentially eat space ships and can’t really help when Sub Visser Seven (now Visser Thirty Two, having gotten a promotion for Controlling an Andalite) arrives in a Blade ship. Elfangor is able to trick them into getting close enough for him to shoot the belly of the ship with his shredders, but they still get boarded. However, weakened, it tears free, leaving Elfangor, Loren, Chapman, and now Visser Thirty Two trapped in an airless ship. Between the three of them (Chapman loses consciousness cuz he’s a weakling), they are able to activate the Time Matrix and escape.

However, because there were three of them trying to control their destination, they end up on a strange plane of existence that is a patchwork of their three home worlds. Elfangor and Loren are able to find each other and figure out how to find the Time Matrix. They meet up with Visser Thirty Two a few times and closely escape. After finding the Time Matrix (to get close to it, they discover that time speeds up and they each age several years very quickly, Loren ends up around 18), Elfangor tells Loren to take control and bring them to Earth. He’s had enough of this fight, having lost Arbron, allowed Alloran to be taken by a Yeerk, and, in his mind, failed in every way.

The two travel to Earth where Loren has made sure (using timey-whimey magic) that everyone accepts the fact that she is now 18. They bury the Time Matrix, deciding it is too dangerous a weapon for any one species to control. Three years pass. Elfangor creates a human morph for himself by combining DNA and traps himself in that morph, taking on the name Al Fangor. He marries Loren and goes into computer science in college. All is as well as it can be until our friend the Ellimist shows up one day.

He says that Elfangor is not where he should be and through various forms of manipulation convinces Elfangor that he must return to the way things are supposed to be, leaving Earth and Loren (whose memories will be wiped) behind. It is only after he agrees that he learns that Loren was pregnant with their son. The Ellimist shows him that his son will be very important in the future, one day meeting up with Elfangor’s own younger brother and four others.

Elfangor returns to the Andalite war and after saving a Dome ship from the now Visser Three instead of Thirty Two, he is hailed a hero and thus starts what will be a long and honored career as an Andalite Prince. The story ends with him landing on Earth, injured and hoping to find the Time Matrix again (the beautiful forest where it was buried has now become an abandoned construction site). He briefly meets his son, and gives him and the other kids the morphing power. He then dies at the hands of Visser Three, leaving a recording of his tale (this book) that is sent out into space.

Elfangor: Elfangor is such a great character. There are clear similarities to Ax with his earnestness and desire to become a great hero of his people. However, he also is more quick to trust the humans he encounters and bond with them. It’s notable that, unlike Ax who in his book was confused by why people thought Rachel was beautiful, Elfangor is immediately taken by Loren and her golden hair. He also more quickly catches on to human humor and adopts it himself.

The stakes get incredibly high for Elfangor through this story. He loses his close friend to Taxxon morph and then is indirectly responsible for the fact that Alloran gets taken over by to-be Visser Three. By the end of the story, it is very understandable why he chooses to retreat to Earth.

The entire book gives us so much great background information for a character who was only ever introduced so briefly back in book one. Even then, I felt like he made a huge impact as a character, beyond the obvious reasons he was necessary for the plot. But this just adds so much more to him. We see the history behind his choices. Why he came to Earth when he was injured in the first place. Why that construction site. Why he chose to break the Andalite law and give human kids the ability to morph (throughout this story he marvels at Loren’s strength and bravery as “just a human kid.”) Why he lingers longest with Tobias. And why his fight with Visser Three felt personal.

Loren: Loren is so great. She’s essentially the character you would get if you mixed Rachel and Marco. She’s brave, but also clever. There were many scenes where she saves the day, either by tricking those around her, or physically taking on beings much larger and stronger than she was. When the Dome ship is being attacked by the living asteroids, she is the one to figure out that they are attracted to energy patterns. She’s Elfangor’s equal in every way, and their relationship at the end is completely believable.

Arbron: Arbron’s story is clearly the saddest. While in Taxxon morph, Elfangor very bluntly discusses the horribleness of the all-consuming hunger that plagues the Taxxons. He even begins to understand why they might choose to become willing Controllers if it would result in more feeding of that hunger. In the end of the book, the Ellimist informs Elfangor that Arbron still lives back on the Taxxon home world in the free Taxxon hive. This is either good news, or incredibly tragic as well.

Alloran: Elfangor’s conflict with Alloran on the ship when it comes to killing the helpless Yeerks comes to an even greater head when he learns that the reason that Alloran is a disgraced War Prince is that he was the one who released a quantum virus back during the Hork Bajiir wars. Basically, he was using chemical weapons. This further dis-illusions Elfangor to the Andalite race, contributing to his decision to flee the war and hide the Time Matrix even from his own people.

This also, obviously, adds even more depth to Visser Three. We met Alloran himself very briefly back in Ax’s book when he was free for a few minutes and asked Ax to kill him. At the time we didn’t know more than what he told us: that he was still fighting against Visser Three and wanted Ax to tell that to his family.

Chapman: Chapman is the worst. I mean, I could pretty much leave it at that. At every single point in this book, he says and does terrible things. And not just in little, average bullying ways. He literally attempts to bargain away the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE to the Yeerks on the Taxxon home world. And even after he’s been made a Controller then left when Visser Three takes over Alloran, he STILL is on the side of the Yeerks.

Loren and Elfangor run into Chapman back on Earth during the three years, and they find out that his memory has somehow been wiped of the entire experience. We later learn from the Ellimist that Chapman is also important to the future.

Visser Three: From the very first moment we meet him, we all recognize our favorite villain. He’s obsessed with getting an Andalite body, a big fan of announcing his plans, and, turns out, very into collecting alien species even before he had the ability to morph.

By this point in the series, we’re all pretty familiar with his penchant for morphing some strange alien creature and telling the Animorphs all about its super cool abilities. On the strange patchwork world that he helps create using the Time Matrix, he has two alien “pets” whom he introduces in a similar manner before siccing them on Loren and Elfangor. So, the power to morph couldn’t have gone to a better Yeerk! He was already in the business of collecting animals!

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias is Elfangor’s son! Am super excited to see how this is revealed to him.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: There’s a fun call back to Ax’s obsession with the power of taste and cigarette butts. When Elfangor’s taking the Mustang for a cruise, he finds a picture of humans enjoying the scenery while putting “slim white cylinders” in their mouths. He thus equates those with human happiness and has to be informed by a laughing Loren that no, cigarettes are bad for you and that picture had only been an ad for them.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The Taxxons, man, they’re terrible. The cannibalism of their own and the fact that they have pretty much zero self control over that is made very clear in the most gruesome ways.

Couples Watch!: As a whole, this is the most romantic story of them all! We actually get an entire romantic arc with Loren and Elfangor meeting, falling in love, and getting married. I remember this as one of my favorite Animorphs books as a kid, and I think part of that has to do with this aspect of it. As much fun as it is to watch the Tobias/Rachel and Cassie/Jake ongoing drama, at a certain point I just wanted them to get together! And here I had that!

“I Get That Reference!”: There were a few references in this book that went completely over my head the first time around! It made re-reading this book super fun this time, discovering them finally. First of all, the Skrit Na creatures are essentially two species. The Skrit are these cockroach-like mindless drones, but the Na are described as short creatures that walk on two legs, but have huge heads and huge eyes. It’s mentioned that the Skirt Na are obsessive about collecting other species and performing strange medical experiments on them. So, there you go! The little alien creature that we generally use, and all the stories of being abducted and experimented on, it’s implied that that came form “real” experiences with the Na! Somehow I didn’t pay enough attention to that description as a kid, and missed that whole tie-in.

Secondly, when Elfangor is on Earth as a human, he references having two computer science friends named “Bill” and “Steve” and how he had to use simple words like “window” and basic icons, like fruit, to describe complex topics to them. As a kid, I completely missed this, so it was super fun seeing it now as an adult!

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: So many things! Arbron’s whole situation. I mean, he’s a kid, and now he’s stuck as a Taxxon, by all accounts the worst thing to be in the universe, forever. In one swoop, he loses everything. Tobias’s situation seems ideal next to this. Alloran, who goes on to be trapped as Visser Three for years and years. And, of course, Elfangor’s choice to leave Loren and his unborn son behind, especially when he meets Tobias later and very briefly hears about his sad life, and how Loren was essentially broken mentally and left Tobias in the care of his neglectful aunt and uncle. Ugh, so sad.

Favorite Quote:

One of the many bad ass moments from Loren, pretty much summing up how we all feel about Chapman:

“You know, Chapman, you are really making the human race look bad,” she said. “You are seriously embarrassing me.” “Who’s side are you on?” Chapman grated. “Not yours,” Loren said.d. She fired the shredder and Chapman jerked and went limp.

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 6

No change!

Rating: All the high ratings! As I said, this was one of my favorites as a kid, and I love it all the more re-reading it as an adult. There’s so much packed into this story, and the characters are all so fully developed for the still-limited page count. And as my massive plot section shows, there was tons going on in this book. It’s an excellent backstory for a character who was only briefly around, but it adds so much to the story going forward.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #12: “The Reaction” by K.A. Applegate

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, November 1997

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: Rachel’s got some pretty strange stuff happening. She can’t control her morphing. One minute, she’s doing homework. The next, she’s morphing a full-grown crocodile, and — without returning to human form — she becomes an elephant. That’s when the floor gives way and Rachel finds herself looking up at what used to be the kitchen ceiling.

What’s going on? No one’s sure, but Rachel and the other Animorphs have to figure it out — quickly. Because if someone sees Rachel’s out-of-control morphing, the other Animorphs and Ax are in some serious trouble…

Narrator: Rachel

Plot: The story starts out in typical Rachel-fashion: jumping into a crocodile pit at the zoo! To be fair, she does it to save a small boy who has fallen in, and this is exactly what she tells Jake when he rants at her later at Cassie’s farm about “exposing them all” when the “friendly crocodile” gave the kid a ride out and drew notice. And in a book full of Rachel making really rash decisions, this one is pretty understandable! Pretty sure they all would have done it, but Rachel has a history of rashness (morphing elephant at both a used car lot and at the zoo, to make animal rights points), so the hammer always seems to come down on her a bit more for this type of stuff.

All of it seems to be mostly put to bed, until Rachel gets home and suddenly, unwillingly, starts morphing elephant in her own room. This, unsurprisingly, brings down the house and she is only just able to get control of herself and morph back before her sisters and mom show up. Between this and the crocodile escapade (people thought she also fell in), she gets quite a lot of local news attention. Rachel, being Rachel, decides that this is just some strange one-off and keeps the whole weird morphing to herself.

The main plot of the story gets tied in when the Animorphs discover that the Yeerks are quite interested in a certain teenage boy actor, one Jeremy Jason McCole. So, I haven’t talked much about the dated aspects of the book, because for the most part they’re just random mentions of VCRs and such, but this is a big one. Teenage super stars are no thing specific to any decade. I mean, we have Beiber and the Jonas Brothers and all that, now-ish. But this one’s pretty hilarious for anyone who grew up in the 90s, as it is a clear and direct reference to Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I mean, you’ve got the name with the rhyming ring to it, and past that, they even discuss the show he is on which has to do with family and, you guessed it, construction. This is such a direct and obvious call out that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud every time I read about it. Which was a lot, since it was the main focus of the story. So, sure, this will read fine to new readers picking up the books today, but without the 90s memories of “Home Improvement” and the JTT madness, much of the humor of this will be lost. But I got it all! And love it.

Anyways, Cassie and Rachel are the only ones who truly understand how bad it would be if Jeremy Jason was to be made a Controller and started promoting The Sharing. After they very strictly made this point to poor, clueless Jake and Marco (while throwing in the fact that boy, wouldn’t it be fun to scout out this situation anyways!), the team decide to morph seagulls, fly out to Jeremy’s yacht (cuz of course he has a yacht), and see what’s what. Turns out that Visser Three himself is there wooing Jeremy Jason to become a willing Controller. Much of the love for Jeremy Jason is thus instantly evaporated for poor Rachel and Cassie.

With perfect timing, Rachel’s morphing issue strikes again and she falls from the air, somehow morphing directly from seagull to other animals (luckily, conveniently, so that the Controllers don’t find out they’re all human). After escaping from another of Visser Three’s freaky morphs (some type of javelin-throwing sea creature that Rachel is able to “pop” by biting it in her croc morph), Rachel’s little problem is outed. Ax, of course, knows a bit about it and it turns out that Rachel is allergic to crocodiles, and will continue to have this morphing issue until she somehow mysteriously “expels” the DNA.

Now knowing that the Jeremy Jason thing is a serious problem, Rachel decides to take advantage of her moment of stardom as “disaster girl” and get on the same local TV program that will be featuring Jeremy Jason. They will then…somehow stop him from promoting The Sharing?? To do this, however, she lies to her friends and says that the whole allergy thing was taken care of, DNA expelled, she’s ready to go.

So, of course, while they’re all at the TV studio, Rachel’s croc problem goes live and she begins growing a crocodile out of her back (apparently what Ax meant by “expel DNA” was grow a full, live crocodile out of oneself that will detach and then just…be there). This leads to much mania and confusion (Marco morphs a llama, Cassie morphs Rachel, a wild croc is loose), and they are only saved from complete discovery by the fact that there also happened to be a zoologist scheduled for the show and the wild animals running everywhere are thought to be his. Through this all, the Yeerk (bizarrely) decides to bail out of Jeremy Jason, and Rachel steps on it accidentally. Jeremy Jason than flees to Asia after deciding that this whole Controller thing wasn’t quite what it was cracked up to be. The end!

Xena, Warriar Princess: Rachel’s strengths and weaknesses are fully shown in this book. Like a wounded animal, she doesn’t like to let others see when she’s hurting or confused, which leads to much of the craziness from her not asking for help with her morphing issue right away. Later, when she also lies about having expelled the DNA, we see another example of her hiding things from the others. This time, however, we can also see that this is tied up with the fact that she understands her role in the group. She’s the brave one, the one who often helps push the others into action, and to do what they hesitate to do. She, partly rightly I think, worries that without her, the others would struggle with this, and many, missions.

She’s also incredibly brave. When Visser Three is coming after them in the ocean, she plays dead and attacks him when he gets close, giving the others time to flee. She often puts herself in these roles where her own survival is called into question to save her friends.

The other notable feature of this book was the direct tie between her reaction to her croc allergy and her ability to keep control of her emotions, specifically anger. I know that this is a recurring theme in the Rachel books: her anger is what makes her powerful and brave, but it can also really hurt her. Some of the later books get quite silly with this, I think, almost jumping the shark with her character. But this was a good look at this issue as it begins to play a bigger role in Rachel’s character and arc throughout the series.

Our Fearless Leader: Poor, poor Jake. After the last book which focused on the tough realities of being a leader, here we have this one where the poor guy has to deal with crazies like Rachel who just go ahead and don’t tell the whole group relevant information that then leads to even worse scenarios, that he then has to make a call on, mid-mission. All cuz of Rachel’s bad decision making.

<No, it’s much better to find out this way, Rachel. You know – when you

could get us all killed,> Jake said.

Other than this, it was funny reading about Jake and Marco’s endless discomfort with the girls’ infatuation with Jeremy Jason McCole. When they first decide to scout out the yacht more closely, this is Jake’s original plan:

<Marco and I will go in close, land on the boat like any ordinary

seagulls, see what we overhear,> Jake went on. <Rachel and Cassie, you

can be backup. Stay ->

<Yeah, right,> I jeered. <You and Marco go. Me and Cassie stay away.

Yeah, that’s really going to happen. Come on, Cassie, we’re going in.>

A Hawk’s Life: Was Tobias even in this book?? Thank god his book is coming up next and SPOILER this problem gets mostly solved. But not too solved, gotta keep a hold on the massive corner of the teenage tragedy market that is Tobias’s life.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Why Cassie?! Why are you such a fun character in Rachel books, but then become the most stick-ish of sticks in the mud during your own books?? It drives me nuts. Cassie was actually a blast in this book, and her friendship with Rachel is definitely me favorite platonic relationship (others being Marco/Jake and Tobias/Ax). They had a lot of good moments just being girls about Jeremy Jason, and it was fun to read. Cassie was also quick to always correct any mistaken identification of the crocodile as an alligator, too, thus fulfilling her “animal facts” quota for the book.

A fun example of their thoughts on the boys’ reaction to Jeremy Jason:

<It’s so sad to hear so much jealousy, don’t you agree, Cassie?>

<It is sad, Rachel. Terribly sad.>

<This is the worst mission we’ve ever been on,> Marco said.

The Comic Relief: Marco gets some good comedic moments in this one (what’s new), when he decides to abandon Jake with the whole “morph a bug” plan while scouting out the TV studio and just morph a convenient llama that was wandering around from the zoologist’s program. I mean, any excuse not to go bug, ammiright? Lots of quips about llama fur and llama spit and llama behavior ensued and it was great. Most impressive, however, was when things went south with the now-detached croc, Marco, in llama morph, did a mad rush at it. For all of his comedy moments, Marco is one of the bravest members of the group and my love for him only grows! He also has a fun moment in the end of the book with Rachel and some more “Xena” nods.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Ax, too, plays a significant role in handling the loose croc situation and essentially takes it out of play all on his own. Rachel makes some pretty clear comments about how she’s been impressed by Ax in the past, but this moment really highlighted the strength and speed of Andalites, raising him to a new level in her eyes.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: Hands down, the “expelling” of the crocodile DNA. I mean, there were pages and pages of descriptions of the very slow process that was the crocodile growing its way out of Rachel’s back and finally dropping off, fully formed. I mean, just think about that whole experience. Or, better yet, don’t.

Couples Watch!: Man, for a book told from the perspective of one of the four characters involved in a couple-ish situation, there was very little to go on here! Maybe a few private asides from Tobias, but we got zero, ZERO, bedroom visits by hawk!Tobias, something that I remember clearly associating with this couple and as happening fairly often in their books. But nope! Nothing! Very disappointing. But the next book is his, so hopefully we’ll see an improvement there. For this book, I just had to fall back on my secondary Marco/Rachel fixation.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: It was strange having Visser Three sucking up to Jeremy Jason McCole, essentially. Didn’t really seem like his usual style of “do first, ask never.” I guess the idea was to highlight how much easier it is on the Yeerks, especially the one controlling someone, if the host is willing? But still, there are more than enough examples of forced-Controllers and in a situation like this where this one, very specific person is needed, it seems like Visser Three wouldn’t have given a hoot what the potential host wanted. But at least he had a relevant morph for chasing the Animorphs again! The javelin-shooting beast (Ax wasn’t paying attention in school to know all about it. Typical.) was a pretty good adversary, all told. Except for that “burst balloon” action there at the end.

The fact that they Yeerks then just let Jeremy Jason run off to Asia to hide also seems highly unlikely. I guess they figured that he wasn’t likely to say anything about it without sounding like a crazy person. But why not just re-capture him and go on with the original plan of using him as a spokesperson for The Sharing?

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: This didn’t have a whole lot in the “feels” department. It was a pretty wacky story, bookended by an even wackier morphing allergy. Even the side plot with Rachel’s family seemed fine. It’s clear that she still has a good relationship with her father, and the brief moments with her sisters, especially her fear that they may have been hurt when the house collapses, were nice. All in all, just a kind of fun adventure!

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: I mean, I’m pretty sure Rachel just straight up admits that they have no plan whatsoever when it comes to trying to mess up the Jeremy Jason TV spot. Beyond the lack of plan there, Rachel herself knows there is even less of a plan since she was the only one who know that the crocodile allergy hadn’t exactly been taken care of. All of the luck, all of the time!

Favorite Quote:

Rachel sums up her own character:

But the thing about fear is you can’t be afraid of it. I know that sounds confusing. I guess what I mean is, be afraid if you have to, right? Fear is like this vicious little worm that lives inside you and eats you alive. You have to fight it. You have to know it’s there. You have to accept that you’ll never get rid of it, but fight it just the same. Brave isn’t about not being afraid. It’s about being scared to death and still not giving in.

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 5

No points awarded! I guess the Animorphs technically pulled off their plan of stopping Jeremy Jason from being taken. But really, if I was going to award points for their success in that, it would be 1 point for the crocodile.

Rating: Pretty good! Lacking in much sustenance, but a fun read none the less. I can excuse wackiness when it leads to a fun story. But when wackiness is combined with dramatic nonsense *cough”The Secret”cough*…

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #11: “The Forgotten”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, October 1997

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: There’s been an accident. Someone crashed-landed a Yeerk Bug fighter. And the Yeerks have been trying to cover it up – quickly. But not before Tobias spots it. So the Animorphs and Ax decide to steal the ship to show the world that Earth has been invaded. That’s when things go terribly wrong. Before they know it, Jake, the other Animorphs, and Ax find themselves in another place. Another time. And there’s no way home…

Narrator: Jake

Plot: Jake is having bizarre flashes of scenes involving him and the others in the rain forest of all places. Thinking he’s going insane, he must plow forward in spite of it all as the faithful leader of the group when Tobias notifies them all of a downed Bug fighter being hidden and worked on in an empty strip mall. The Animorphs decide to go check it out and, in a bizarre and rapid-fire sequence of terrible decision making, sneak aboard and fly off with the hopes of landing it at the White House and outing the Yeerk invasion once and for all. Surprising no one, this plan fails and fails big.

Losing control of the ship, they end up in outer space participating in a space battle with the Yeerks’ Blade ship. They cross laser fire and both ships end up damaged and plummet to earth, landing in the Brazilian rain forest. But not only are they now miles and miles from home with a broken space ship and Visser Three and his minions sweeping the forest looking for them, but they realize that they’ve traveled back in time several hours.

Ax, of course, wasn’t paying attention in school that day, but he theorizes that the space battle/laser intersection created a Saario Rip, a break in the space time continuum resulting in there now being two Jakes, two Cassies, etc etc all existing at once in different locations. And if they don’t re-set the whole thing in time, both groups will be wiped out. This portion of the plot was just as confusing as most time travel plotlines are and at a certain point I just threw up my hands and went with it.

Ultimately, the group spends a ridiculous amount of time acquiring jungle morphs (monkeys and jaguars) and generally getting a thorough lesson on why the rain forest is deadly. Rachel (of course it’s Rachel) almost gets eaten alive by a colony of ants. They’re almost poisoned by a variety of frogs and snakes. And they make friends with the local people who aren’t too thrilled with the Hork Bajir and other aliens now wandering around on their turf.

Jake and co. come to the obvious conclusion that they must return to the ship and hope to sneak on and hop a ride with Visser Three back to the U.S. and their own time period. Unfortunately for them, Visser Three seems to be smarter in this time period than he usually is and anticipates this move. He morphs some strange tree tentacle creature (how is that he has all of these super specific morphs ready at hand that seemingly would only work in these exact scenarios?) and captures and eats them all when they show up. Jake’s death then snaps his consciousness back to before they stole the Bug Fighter and he quickly calls off the whole thing, leaving him as the only member of the group remembering any of it.

I still don’t quite understand how Jake is the only one to remember all of this and why any one of the Animorph’s deaths wouldn’t have done the same. Maybe the others who were eaten weren’t dead yet? So Jake technically dies first and then stops the whole thing? I dunno, it was all quite confusing, but a blast anyways! I loved the changed setting of having the story take place in the rain forest, and it was fun seeing Visser Three not be a complete idiot. After the nonsense in Cassie’s book with his reaction to the skunk spray, he had begun to lose some of his fear factor and validity as a legitimate threat, so it was nice to see him back on form, even if it all gets wiped away anyways.

Our Fearless Leader: Jake’s books are always interesting due to his unique position as leader of the group. Through the others’ eyes and narratives, we always hear about how much they all respect and appreciate the fact that he takes on this role. But it’s only through his POV books that we truly understand how crushing this load must be in every single book. This whole story essentially revolved around the types of life and death calls that Jake has to make at every moment and how easily any one decision could go terribly wrong. He’s not operating with any more information than the rest of them, but it’s still up to him to choose whether to risk the safety of the group or of individuals.

At multiple points in this story, Jake has to send individuals into dangerous situations on their own (leaving Ax to retrieve a piece of the Bug fighter while they’re in the rain forest to prevent Visser Three and the rest of the Yeerks from leaving without them, and then later leaving Rachel behind as she struggles to navigate the paths through the forest in her bulky bear morph). Not only does he have to make these decisions, but he has to live with the anger and fear of the others for doing it at all. Tobias is angry that Ax is being left to fend for himself, and the whole group struggles with the close call Rachel has with her bear morph being almost eaten alive by ants.

Towards the end of the book, it is clear that Jake has made all of the wrong decisions that lead to their “deaths.” But, as we’ve seen through his eyes, at the time, he made the best decisions he could, which just makes their ultimate “fate” all the harder for Jake. This book is a good look at how easily things could go wrong for the group, even when making the best decisions they can. And man, poor Jake. He has to be the strongest member of the group to deal with this type of pressure every day.

Xena, Warriar Princess: Other than the horrifying ant scene, there were a few moments with Rachel that I found notable. One was the opening scene which was a comedic little bit where Jake and Rachel are square dancing. It’s always fun when we get moments like this between Jake and Rachel when we’re reminded that they’re related and have a unique relationship to and knowledge of the other. Secondly, Jake has a very astute understanding of Rachel. After she’s almost killed by the ants, Jake notes that whenever she’s scared she reacts by getting mad, and that this anger can often express itself in recklessness. It’s a nice reminder of how completely Jake must know and navigate the different personalities that make up the Animorphs so that he can best lead the group.

A Hawk’s Life: As usual, Tobias is the one that starts off this mission as he has nothing but time to fly around and notice strange things like downed Bug fighters. But, for once, he actually gets to come along on this trip. Obviously a hawk doesn’t do well in the rain forest, especially not a rain forest full of Controllers who are on the look out for animals that don’t belong. Jake also notes that an extra challenge with Tobias is that hawks don’t deal with hunger as well as humans, so Tobias’ situation is even more perilous the longer they are there.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie’s animal knowledge is, of course, useful. She is able to identify where they are in the world by recognizing the types of monkeys swinging in the trees. I just don’t get it. Cassie is so much more sane and likable in other character’s books! It’s almost like she’s out-of-character in her own when she reacts so ridiculously to things. For example, in this book the Yeerks end up killing a lot of the local animals and trees in their attempts to flush the Animorphs out. When she’s asked if she’s upset about this she says that of course she is, but the best way for her to save the planet is to not die, get back to their own timeline, and beat the Yeerks. Not get bogged down in trying to save some specific trees. This! This makes sense! But we just got done seeing her have the completely opposite thought process in her own book when she essentially prioritized a small bit of forest, a nest of baby skunks, and a termite colony above the safety of the group! I don’t get it. She’s so much more relatable, rational, and sympathetic in books like this than her own.

The Comic Relief: Marco doesn’t do much in this book. He’s good for his quips, as always, but his usual contributions (smarts and planning) aren’t used much in this book.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: As always now it seems, the group wouldn’t get far without Ax’s knowledge of technology. But I think Applegate made a very good decision with his re-occuring “I wasn’t paying attention in school that day” routine. Obviously he’s way more technologically advanced than the rest, allowing them to even think about trying to fly the Bug fighter. But it’s good that he doesn’t have a complete understanding of things like Saario Rips and so forth, otherwise he’d be a bit too close to a deus ex machina in all of these stories.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: The ants! The ants! Why is it always ants?!?! The whole scene where Rachel is being eaten alive in bear morph by an ant colony was probably one of the most horrifying scenes in the series to date, and that’s really saying something. There were unnecessarily vivid descriptions of ants carrying off pieces of flesh and crawling into mouths and eyes and..,.nope, just nope.

Couples Watch!: There’s a cute scene in the beginning when Cassie comes to watch Jake and Rachel square dance and Jake is super embarrassed by it all. But at least he has a healthy outlook on it and is relieved to see that she’s laughing her head off at him, rather than pitying him.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three has a smart plan! He has a smart plan, guys! He also has a couple good snarky lines that were pretty funny, especially when his underlings went crazy and started shooting up the forest and he questioned the thought process that lead them to destroying the trees…cuz obviously the “Andalite bandits” morphed trees…

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: There really wasn’t anything too soul crushing in this book. Lots of action, less feels. I mean, I guess I should have gotten upset about then all “dying” and everything…but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen so I couldn’t get too worked up about it.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: The whole thesis statement of this book was “Jake has terrible plans and it sucks to be the leader.” I really feel that the whole “let’s steal the Bug fighter and fly it to the White House” had some glaring flaws from the start. Beyond the fact that none of them knew how to fly it, Ax’s techy knowledge aside, the whole thing was a massive gamble that was going to get their cover blown with them having no control of the actual outcome beyond the point where they landed. Not only would the Yeerks be trying to shoot them down, but I’m pretty sure the U.S. government would have something to say about an alien aircraft approaching the White House.

Favorite Quote:

More proof for my “Marco follows (loves??) Rachel” theory!

“We didn’t vote,” Rachel said. “But if we had, you’d have voted yes.””How do you know how I’d have voted?” Marco demanded. Rachel smiled. “Because I’d have voted yes.”

And a good Marco quip about their terrible planning:

<Oh, good,> Marco said sarcastically. <Another rushed, unplanned, last-minute mission. Those always turn out so well.>

Scorecard: Yeerks 3, Animorphs 5

I’m giving this one to the Yeerks, since if it weren’t for convenient timey-whimey tricks, Visser Three pulled off 1.) an actually well-thought out plan, 2.) a useful and appropriate morph, and 3.) killed all of the Animorphs. Further, even after Jake closes the Saario Rip, the Animorphs still fail to take advantage of the massive opportunity that was the downed Bug ship.

Rating: It’s not furthering the overall plot at all, but it was a great stand alone story! The change of scenery to the rain forest added for a lot of unique fun!

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #10: “The Android”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, September 1997

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: When Marco runs into his old friend Erek he doesn’t think too much of it. He’s got a couple of more important things to do. Like helping to save the world. But then Marco finds out Erek’s been hanging with some of the kids at The Sharing. And he starts to think that something just a little weird is going on. So Marco, Jake and Ax decide to morph and check old Erek out. Just to see if he’s been infested with a Yeerk. The good news is that Erek’s not a human controller. The bad news is that Erek’s not even human…

Narrator: Marco

Plot: After convincing Jake to join him in an “inappropriate use of morphing” escapade to crash a concert in dog morph, Marco and he discover that a friend of theirs from school, Erek, is not what he seems. He has no scent! He’s also handing out pamphlets for “The Sharing,” the Yeerk front group for recruiting new Controllers. All highly suspicious! Let the sleuthing begin! Some more scouting has Marco and Tobias in bird morph see Erek get hit by a bus and then pop right up as if nothing had happened. Even more amazing was the flicker they see, revealing a bizarre metallic body beneath what seems to be a hologram of some sort. The Animorphs then conclude that they need to use “non traditional” eyes to see beneath this hologram to discover the truth of Erek, so Marco and Ax end up morphing spider and infiltrating a “Sharing” lake-front gathering to sneak up on Erek. I’m unclear why they couldn’t have used their fly morphs which also have compound eyes and would be much safer than spiders due to the simple fact that they can fly. This is even more true since Marco gets eaten by a bird at one point and must demorph THROUGH THE BIRD’S NECK to escape! But, they do discover that Erek is definitely some type of android when he comes upon Marco and Ax morphing and “invites” them back to his house to discuss things.

What follows is the introduction of a completely new set of aliens into our growing catalog of interstellar life. Beneath Erek’s house is a whole host of androids that they learn are called the Chee. The Chee are the creation of an extinct species called the Pemalites, a technologically advanced, but peaceful, species that was wiped out when they were attached by another race. The last of their kind escaped to Earth where the Chee were able to somehow connect the remaining essense of their creators into the most similar species to be found on Earth: wolves. The result was the modern dog, the happy-go-lucky animals that share the same spirit as the lost Pemalites. But due to their peaceful perspective, the Chee were programmed in a way that doesn’t allow them to commit violence in any way. Now that the Yeerks are threatening Earth, the humans, and the dogs that contain all that remains of their creators, Erek and some other Chee wish to join the fight. And this is where the Animorphs come in.

Turns out that the Yeerks have somehow acquired a Pemalites crystal that they are using to develop a super computer that will be able to take control of all the computers in the world. Further, this same crystal could be used by the Chee to re-write their programming and allow them to more actively join the fight. All of this is enough motivation to get our heroes involved.

What follows is an action sequence right out of the movie “Entrapment.” Morphed as cockroaches and spiders, they must navigate a piped tunnels, fall great distances (seriously, there’s so much falling in this series as a whole), evade a rat, almost get burned alive by a furnace activating at an inopportune time, and then morph bats to sneak through a pitch black room full of trigger wires. All of this to discover that once they get there, they have no way of carrying the crystal back. So, because no Animorph book can be completely without them all using their battle morphs, the team decide they must bash their way out. This is…not successful. There was a reason they were told by the Chee that sneaking in was the best option. The Animorphs are sliced and diced and only saved by Marco’s dying push to shove the crystal through a window to Erek who is waiting outside. He is then able to re-write his programming and save the day by massacring the remaining Controllers. But he discovers the price of this violence is too high, especially for an android whose memory is always clear, giving no relief or escape from these acts. The story ends with the Chee offering to help by providing information as they can, but refusing to take the crystal. Marco and Jake have a final moment on the beach with Homer and some other dogs where, majestically, Homer carries off the crystal to be lost in the ocean. The end.

The Comic Relief: Marco is definitely my favorite narrator. His voice is the most distinct, and, especially as I re-read this series as an adult, he is the character I most relate to. He’s highly pragmatic, but also comfortable admitting when things are getting too real and scary. As far as character-growth, there’s not necessarily a lot of that in this book for Marco. Probably some of the least as far the series has gone so far. Usually the POV narrator has some distinct arc to go through. But I’m guessing that there was so much action and world-building that came with the introduction of the Chee and the Pemalites, that some of this had to take a back seat. We get some nice moments between Marco and his Dad (see Adult Crying portion), and some fun friend moments with Jake, but at this point in the series, Marco is pretty committed what with his Mom being Visser One and doesn’t need much more motivation to keep this fight going. He does have a strong reason though to have a very frank approach to getting the Chee involved in the fight. No moral concerns from him, really, about tainting a peaceful species’ (?) soul with violence. Not when their help could make the difference in this war and save his mother and humanity. When Cassie is blathering on and on about the wrongness of tainting the Chee species, Marco has this to say:

“Look, no one likes violence. All right? But we didn’t ask for this war with the Yeerks. When the bad guys come after you, when they start the violence, they leave you no choice: fight or die.”

On the other hand, he doesn’t fight against Erek’s and the Chee’s choice to abstain from the war after he sees the effects Erek feels after the violence to save the Animorphs towards the end of the story. This whole approach to the Chee conundrum just felt very real and true to Marco’s character as a very practical guy, but also a very empathetic one. He’s just a very well-rounded character. And, funny, never forget funny.

Our Fearless Leader: It’s fun to see Jake get wheedled into just being a regular teenager by Marco early in the book with the concert escapade. Their relationship is very similar to Rachel and Cassie’s in that Jake is more serious, but Marco allows him to just be a regular kid who wants to see a band for free. Marco also mentions how much he appreciates the work that Jake does as a leader when they are all trapped in the building needing to decide how to break out. They all know they’re going to need to go the almost-suicidal-route and barge their way through in battle morph, but it takes Jake saying it for it to be real. And Marco notes the strength it must take to always be in that role.

Xena, Warriar Princess: I don’t know if this is “shipping” per se (though, again, re-reading this series, while I love Tobias/Rachel, I more and more can see a Rachel/Marco thing working), but it is interesting to note a pattern with Marco’s views of Rachel. In book 7, we see him change his vote about going with the Ellimist after seeing Rachel break down and admit that she’s struggling with this war. And here, Marco doesn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation with Erek’s pain after killing until he sees Rachel crying. In both of these examples, it is clear that Marco uses Rachel as a gauge upon which to judge his reaction to an event. Rachel clearly has a thing for Tobias, but Marco…even if it’s not romantic, he clearly respects Rachel very much and perhaps even identifies with her the most when it comes to these situations.

A Hawk’s Life: Ugh, poor Tobias! Again he is completely side-lined from the action in this book, especially the last half. He does some good work in the initial scouting of Erek, but can’t, obviously, do anything in their infiltration plan in the end.

Peace, Love, and Animals: Cassie seems to have come to her senses a bit with regards to the fact that Tobias is a hawk that *gasp* eats baby animals sometimes. In one scene she’s scoping out a baby possum nest and notes how cute they are, but admits that Tobias as a hawk has a right to eat them if he needed to…but they’re so cute! Effectively guilting him out of it. Still, a vast improvement over her ridiculous anger in the last book. She is also, of course, completely against the idea of re-writing the Chee’s programming so that they can fight. But it must be noted that when Marco essentially gives her an out on the mission to steal the crystal by saying that he understands if anyone wanted to not involve themselves, Cassie steps up to the plate and accepts the group’s choice (and more importantly, in my opinion, Erek’s and the Chee’s choice!).

E.T./Ax Phone Home: Turns out that not only can Ax keep track of time in his head, he also has an innate ability to tell direction, which I’m sure will come in useful in the future. As always, Ax’s deadpan humor and inability to discern sarcasm plays as a great foil to Marco. These two are really the most entertaining pair in the group, and it’s always great when they end up on missions together, like they did here as spiders.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: We learn an important fact about morphing in this book that will come up again in a future book in a big way, if I remember correctly.  But, with his usual perfect timing, as they are morphing spider, Ax informs Margo that when one morphs a smaller animal then themselves, their “extra mass” gets ballooned out into Z space. So….blobs of extra guts, and skin, and hair just bobbing around in space. Disgusting and also incredibly nerve-wracking as Marco notes the freakiness of the fact that these blogs could be hit by a passing space ship at any time. Ax is very reassuring about this concern, of course, noting that a ship would never “hit” a mass of excess morph material; it would be disintegrated by the ship’s shields immediately. Thanks Ax.

Couples Watch!: Not a lot in this book, other than my own developing Marco/Rachel/Tobias love triangle that exists nowhere but my own head. When describing the team members, Marco mentions Jake and Cassie’s quasi relationship saying:

“The only time they’ll act that way is when we’re about twelve seconds away from doing something insanely dangerous. Then they’ll kind of give each other these pathetic sad looks. It’s so lame.”

Also, at one point, when Marco and Cassie barely escape being killed by the furnace which suddenly turns on as they are crossing it, Jake becomes very concerned about Cassie, forgetting to ask about Marco’s well-being, much to Marco’s annoyance.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: Visser Three isn’t in this book! This is a first I think! Instead, we get some high-ranking “grandmotherly” human Controller leading the troops in the final battle. But, guess it makes sense. Though we never see him in action, it sounds like Erek was pretty much an unstoppable killing force when he saved the group and we can’t have him taking out Visser Three right here and ending the whole series!

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: So, the scene between Marco and his Dad. It turns out that Marco’s Dad’s company is thinking about getting involved in developing some type of military technology. But Marco’s Dad tells him this story about how in the year before her death, his relationship with Marco’s Mom turned some type of corner and they had a blissful relationship. Never fighting, completely in love. And one night during this time he woke up to see Marco’s Mom sitting up in bed, clearly struggling with something. But all she says is “They won’t take you if you don’t become involved with the military.” And he never fully understood it, but it’s been enough for him to avoid military projects ever since.

Marco sees this story for what it really means. This “blissful” period of time is when his mother became infested. The Yeerk has no reason to involve itself in petting marital spats, preferring a simple home life to focus on its own work. And that night in bed between his Mom and Dad was his Mom’s massive fight against the Yeerk to gain enough control to give her husband that one warning to avoid the military to save him from becoming a Controller himself.

The whole thing is so tragic. His Dad’s false memories of this happy portion of their marriage. The real struggle, and likely high price that was paid, by his Mom to deliver the warning.

One last note on this, the book never really addresses this point again, that Marco’s Dad was considering getting involved with a military contract that would make him bait for the Yeerks. I guess we are left to assume that he decides to continue abiding my his wife’s warning, even if he doesn’t understand it.

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: Marco notes how the original plan to infiltrate the Yeerk base to get the crystal was supposed to be a week away, giving them time to practice their bat morph and better prepare. But Erek discovers that the Yeerks are working to make the base even more well-protected, forcing the team to need to jump into action immediately. So, there’s some excuse (and self-awareness!) here about the lack of planning. However, turns out the bat morph is super easy to control, so practicing it wasn’t really necessary anyways. But the fact that they couldn’t carry the crystal out…that problem was always there, right in front of them, being ignored!

Favorite Quote:

Marco/Rachel banter is the best. And a big deal is made over the fact that Marco has cut his hair short in the beginning of this book (let’s be real, the model for Marco for the book covers cut his hair and the book needed to address it, for some reason).

“That’s what that hair of yours reminds me of: a wolverine. I knew it was something.” [Rachel said]

“Oh, yeah?” I shot back. “Well, how about your . . . your …”

“My what?” Rachel asked coolly, with the absolute confidence of a girl who never looked less than perfect.

“Your tallness,” I said lamely. “You’re . . . tall. Way tall.”

Somehow this brilliant comeback did not cause Rachel to break down in tears.

Scorecard: Yeerks 2, Animorphs 5

Even though the Chee don’t end up joining the war, escaping with the Pemalite crystal and preventing the Yeerks from creating some type of super computer that would control all computers is still a pretty big win, so a point to the Animorphs!

Rating: A solid Marco book! He’s my favorite narrator in the series, and even though he doesn’t have much of a personal arc in this story, we’re still introduced to the Chee who will play a role in future books, so this is an important installment in the series.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!

Animorphs #9: “The Secret”

Publishing Info: Scholastic Paperbacks, August 1997

Where Did I Get this Book: own it!

Book Description: There’s something pretty weird going on in the woods behind Cassie’s house. The place where Ax and Tobias call home. It seems the Yeerks have figured out one very important thing: Andalites cannot survive without a feeding ground. Visser Three knows the “Andalite bandits” don’t feed where he does, so there can only be one other place.

Now Cassie, Marco, Jake, Rachel, Tobias, and Ax have to figure out a way to stop a bogus logging camp. Because if Visser Three finds Ax in the woods, nothing will stop him from finding the Animorphs…

Narrator: Cassie

Plot: The book starts with our now customary “mini adventure.” This time is Cassie trying to complete homework to make up her grade since all the Animorph action has real consequences when it comes to success at school. She’s to conduct a research project with a rat and a maze and one thing leads to another and….Rachel and Cassie each morph rats, obviously! Even though it is expressly against Jake’s rules to never use morphing for reasons that aren’t strictly necessary. And then, of course, teen boys show up to pester the rats and they two decide to drive them off by running up the inside of their jeans. Which…maybe it’s just me, but if I were two teen girls, the last place I would want to go is up two boys’ pant legs. I mean, either route has a bad destination….Anyways! The science project is ruined, so Cassie and Rachel went back to Rachel’s house to give Rachel’s sister a home perm. Like you do.

The main action of the story comes when Tobias and Ax report that a logging company has moved into the woods near Cassie’s farm and set up a base. The notable piece being that the base is protected by a force field. Points to Cassie for immediately discerning the Yeerks’ goal: destroy Andalite environment. Flush out the Andalite warriors. After scoping out the place, it becomes clear that the Yeerks are ready for them (Cassie and Marco almost get snagged in a net), so they must come up with a sneaky way of infiltrating the base. After meeting up at the mall, they decide the only way to do it is in insect form. But not ants. Never ants again. Instead, termites! So..better? They fly in owl morph, then after drawing straws, Jake morphs a wolf to provide a distraction as the others morph termite and tunnel their way in.

The termite morph, while not as bad as the ant, still plays with the kids’ minds, sucking them into the group-think colony in a similar manner to other insect morphs. They essentially all get mind controlled by the termite queen, and are only saved by Rachel’s quick thinking to kill the queen and Cassie managing the task herself. But then she panics and demorphs, erupting through the wood only saved by Ax’s ability to demorph his tail and cut them all out. She then proceeds to completely melt down, screaming and pushing the others away, forcing them to hold her down and clamp her mouth shut while Ax is accessing the computer to get information on how the Yeerks managed to get logging access to what turns out to be a federal forest. They discover the Yeerks need one more person to sign off on the project before having full permission to “log” and so the next mission becomes keeping this person from becoming a Controller.

Throughout the book is a side story in which Cassie and her dad rescue a skunk that had been burned by a Yeerk laser beam (they must have thought it was an Animorph). They discover the skunk has kits somewhere out in the woods, which continues to distress Cassie throughout the story. And I can’t blame her! She manages to double up her mission to the logging base, scouting the woods and finding the babies’ nest while in owl morph. But then she takes it too far. After her breakdown in the base, she goes home, morphs the skunk, and ends up falling asleep taking care of the babies. She’s only saved from a life stuck in a skunk morph by the appearance of Jake and co. (summoned by Tobias who helped Cassie find the nest). Jake is understandably angry about not only the close call, but also Cassie’s supremely poor decision making throughout this all. But then, cuz they’re all good kids and Cassie’s clearly lost her mind, a “skunk babysitting” system is put in place in which they will all help take care of the baby skunks until the mommy skunk is well enough to be released.

The main plot is wrapped up with a fairly nonsensical battle in which Cassie essentially ends up captured, morphs a skunk, sprays Visser Three and all of his thugs, and somehow…this freaks them out so much that they hand the guy over in exchange for the trick to get rid of the smell? It was honestly the stupidest conclusion to a book so far in the series. Between Cassie’s supremely annoying moralizing and termite-related insanity, way too much time spent on saving baby skunks, and the ridiculous final battle, this is the first book the series that I think I have outright not liked. Ah well, was bound to happen sooner or later!

Peace, Love, and Animals: Man, Cassie, she just makes it difficult for me. I mean, I grew up in northern Idaho. I love the woods, and I know how damaging clear cut style logging can have on an environment. But the girl has got to get her priorities straight! After they scope the logging company and almost get caught, realizing that the whole thing is a trap for them, she still starts going on and on about how the logging itself is also, equally!, a big deal. And no, I’m sorry, that’s just not true at this point. They are trying to save the world. The fate of one forest is not the concern here. This is the kind of stuff that makes Cassie’s books the most frustrating for me to read. She just comes off as a bit ridiculous and foolish with her priorities a lot of times.

And her panic attack in the fort….I was a bit confused in the moment, but later in the story Cassie is reflecting on it and her major problem was that she was sick with herself for killing the queen and destroying the termite colony. And look, empathy is great and all. But I draw the line here. This reasoning is on the level of true craziness, to risk your human friends’ lives because you need to panic about destroying a termite colony and how awful of a person that makes you. I’m just going to say it. I don’t like Cassie. I’ve tried, I really have! But, of them all, she consistently behaves in a way that seems ridiculous, unsafe, and unwise. And none of this madness ever really gets resolved in the book. She goes on to get angry at Tobias for eating a baby skunk, and by the end of the book is still trying to work through all the moral quandaries of termites and how maybe we’re no better than Yeerks etc etc. And I just kind of wanted to slap her.

So, while I can appreciate the unique aspects that Cassie’s character bring to the series, at this point, she’s not for me. But there’s a lot of books left, so maybe she will improve as we go.

Our Fearless Leader:  Cassie and Jake like each other. As in like. Cassie’s words, not mine. Jake also shows his leadership in smaller ways. When the go to scope out the logging company, he teams up Cassie with Marco instead of Rachel because he knows that the girls tend to egg each other on, as evidenced by the rat escapade which Jake caught on to after hearing about teen boys freaking out due to rat-to-pants invasions.

It is also particularly weird, even for the reader, when Jake selects the straw to be the distraction. It’s mentioned that they all kind of assumed he’d be going in with them, the leader and all, and I found myself surprised as well.

Xena, Warriar Princess: Cassie sums up Rachel and her own relationship (and Rachel and everyone’s relationship, for that matter) fairly effectively saying:

“That’s the great thing about Rachel — she’s always willing to help talk you into doing something you probably shouldn’t do.”

There’s also a nice little reference to a few books ago when Rachel talked Cassie into joining her on her elephant crusade against the cruel trainer at the circus, which Cassie effectively uses to guilt Rachel into joining her in rat morph to complete her homework in the beginning of the book. It’s always fun seeing these small callbacks pop up in these books.

Rachel also helps comfort Cassie through her panic attack in the Yeerk base after demorphing from termites. Their bestie relationship is still very precious, if only because Cassie seems like a better person when Rachel is around.

A Hawk’s Life: Tobias and Ax are the ones to discover the logging base. And he gets the termite for them. But, per the usual at this point, Tobias gets sidelined due to his inability to morph. He even misses out on the pre-mission action as the rest approach at night in owl morph and hawks can’t see well at night. Man, Tobias’s book can’t come soon enough. Spoiler alert: the whole recurring Tobias inaction thing gets solved, which will be a relief at this point.

Tobias does help talk Cassie through her craziness about guilt over killing the termite queen. In this conversation, she proceeds to compare herself to the Yeerks for invading the termite colony and destroying it to protect herself. Again…actual thinking is clearly not Cassie’s strong suit. Self-protection is not the same as wantonly destroying other species for your own benefit and power! But then she gets mad at him for eating a baby skunk, and….angry at Cassie yet again.

The Comic Relief:  Marco continues to prove that he’s one of the smartest members of the group, picking up on the Yeerks’ plan just as fast as Cassie and anticipating the challenge of scoping it out since the Yeerks would be on high alert for just that kind of reaction and be immediately suspicious of any group of animals that would approach. When Cassie gets paired with Marco, she says that he can get on her nerves. Of course he can, Cassie! Cuz, girl, you can be a bit of a stick in the mud at times. But she later admits that Marco is a very loyal friend, sticking with her through all the skunk madness.

Marco’s terrible driving is also referenced when Cassie goes out with her Dad to pick up a skunk that got hit by a car and comments that they’re in a truck they just bought cuz the last one was “stolen” and found wrecked in a ditch.

E.T./Ax Phone Home: When the group meets to form a plan in the mall, Cassie’s reaction to Ax coming in his human morph sums up it all “Uh oh.” According to Jake, Ax is making progress since he “didn’t eat the plate this time” when they get nachos at the food court. We also find out that Ax, in addition to cigarette butts, has eaten dryer lint and engine oil.

Best (?) Body Horror Moment: “Face bulged like a zit about to pop”…in reference to morphing a rat. As if just morphing a rat in the first place wasn’t horrible enough. There’s also another reference to Cassie’s superb morphing abilities when she becomes a wolf, only controlling her morph so the wolf head comes first and is fully formed on her human body. Wolfwoman. Cool…or creepy? And the termite morph is about as disgusting as you would expect.

Couples Watch!: Other than the references that Cassie makes herself about her and Jake liking each other, there’s a moment in the beginning when Rachel asks Tobias why he didn’t come by the other night and Cassie clarifies that they hang out together in the evenings and watch movies and such. Super cute.

If Only Visser Three had  Mustache to Twirl: The Yeerk logging company is called “Dapsen” which, according to Ax, is  a “not polite” word. So it’s funny to see that the Yeerks must have some kind of sense of humor for this all! Also, the fact that somehow Visser Three is so evil that he projects an aura of evilness even disguised in human morph is once again mentioned. Eve after only seeing Visser Three’s human morph once before, Tobias immediately says that something feels “wrong” about one particular human when they’re scouting the log camp.

Adult Ugly Crying at a Middle Grade Book: Is it weird that the saddest part might have been Cassie’s thoughts about the abandoned skunk kits? Crying out for their mother? Alone in the woods, not knowing why she won’t come? Ugh! Animal sadness!

What  a Terrible Plan, Guys!: I can’t even accurately describe the final “battle” in this book, because that’s how terrible it all was. Cassie is trapped by the Yeerks, and for some reason, she can anticipate that her skunk morph’s spray will be the most effective tool against them. Any logic here would have her morphing something with more fire power. And the complete melt-down the Yeerks have is completely ridiculous…in a series that is already pretty ridiculous, so you know it’s got to be bad.

Favorite Quote:

While their final plan is even stupider, I appreciate the dryly humors and accurate commentary by Rachel on their initial plan to scout out the logging base.

“Here’s the plan,” Jake said. “We morph owls to get close. We demorph at least two hundred yards away from the compound. Then we crawl close, morph termites, dig under the force field, and enter the termite holes in the outside of the building.”

“As long as it’s nice and simple,” Rachel said darkly.

Scorecard: Yeerks 2, Animorphs 4

I am awarding the Yeerks a point on the cleverness of the logging plan and for the fact that that plan is a million times smarter than anything the Animorphs themselves came up with in this book. Essentially, I refuse to give the Animorphs points for a book that depends on skunk spray for its resolution.

Rating: Not great. Really, I didn’t like anything about this book. Cassie cemented herself as my least favorite character by far with her irresponsible craziness, and the story itself felt unnecessary (waaaaay too much time on random skunk kits) and had a conclusion that I couldn’t take seriously. And I tried  hard.

Note: I’m not going to rate these books since I can’t be objective at all! But I’ll give a one sentence conclusion and you can take from that what you will!