Yes, every single book. Even the extra books where they go back in time and turn into dinosaurs (yes, dinosaurs).

The year is 2019. I’m 28 years old, and I’m going to read all 64 Animorphs books.

Did you read Animorphs as a kid? I absolutely devoured them. I could smash through one in an afternoon.

I recently read this article about the staying power Animorphs had. It really resonated with a lot of kids, and now there’s a whole generation of adults out there, with the epic sagas of the Andalites and the Yeerks and the Ellimist floating around in the back of their pscyhe.

I never actually read all 64 books. My school library had the first 20 or so (including one of the “Megamorph” books, where the gang travelled through time and turned into dinosaurs!) and it was hard to find the others in the state library. Eventually I managed to read a few of the last ones, including the final book (I remember not liking it too much).

One year I had a book voucher (it was either a school prize, or a Christmas gift from my Granny) and I chose an Animorphs auxiliary book called The Ellimist Chronicles. I was not prepared for how grim that book was. It was really bloody dark. It involved two immortal consciousnesses tormenting each other for eternity, and a really scary brain planet that could keep your body alive while it kept your mind forever imprisoned.

Anyway, I’m going to try to read the entire series this year. All 54 core books, and all 10 companion books. I’m trying to sever my constant attachment to social media, and my hope is that by having easy to read books on my phone, I’ll gravitate toward doing that, rather than the mindless scroll. I’ll attach some extra articles about Animorphs (including a great interview with the cover artist) at the end of this post.

I’m going to record what I remember of the series below, and we will see how accurate it is as I make my way through the books.

Here’s what I remember of the Animorphs

• Five teens stumble upon a crashed spacecraft. Inside is an Andalite, a blue mouthless centaur who eats through his hooves. He holds out a special cube and the teens all touch a side. They get a cool power to defeat the Yeerks. If you don’t know what a Yeerk is, but you’ve watched Stargate, they’re just like the Goa’uld – mind controlling invaders in search of hosts. The Andalite dies.
• The teens can now turn into an animal if they touch it and acquire its DNA. But don’t change for too long, otherwise you turn into that animal forever.
• Another Andalite arrives. He is the first one’s brother. He absorbs the DNA of all five kids, and turns himself into an ethnically ambiguous blend of all of them.
• Eventually a heap more alien races are introduced, and the battle to save Earth becomes more intense. In the final book, one of the characters sacrifices herself to defeat the Yeerks.

The Animorphs are:

• Jake. The first book is from his perspective, and he is the de facto leader of the group.
• Rachel. Jake’s cousin, who is super popular and pretty. Throughout the series she becomes more and more ruthless. She has the same name as me, which I always enjoyed.
• Cassie. Rachel’s best friend. Her mum is a vet, which gives them lots of access to animals to transform into. She’s super kind and compassionate and wants to understand the Yeerks, and thinks they may not be inherently evil.
• Tobias. Weird kid that the group isn’t really friends with at the beginning of the books. Gets bullied and has a terrible home life. Pretty early on he turns into a hawk and doesn’t turn back. He’s a hawk for the rest of the series, but I think he gets a few opportunities to have his human form back, but he turns them down. He and Rachel have a bit of a thing going on, despite the whole bird of prey situation.
• Marco. Jake’s best friend. I literally remember nothing about him.
• Their Andalite buddy. Can’t remember his name. He’s a fish out of water on Earth, and provides some light comic relief as well as information about the various alien species.

So that’s it, that’s a brief overview of the books, as remembered from almost 20 years ago. Every few books I’ll post an update and recap. My goal is to get through the whole series before the end of the year! We’ll see how we go.

Bonus Animorphs content

• This is the Paris Review article I linked at the top that inspired me to re-read the books.
• A lovely article about the artist who created the iconic book covers.
• When I shared the Paris Review article on my Facebook, my friend Isaac linked me to this hilarious podcast bit about a video game where you play as the halfway transformed children.
• If you can’t find the books at your library (or in your childhood bedroom) searching “Animorphs scans” should find you a copy of the ebooks.