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Science fantasy young adult book series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Animorphs is a science fantasy series of youth books written by Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant,[2] writing together under the name K. A. Applegate,[3] and published by Scholastic.[4] It is told in first person, with all six main characters taking turns narrating the books through their own perspectives. Horror, war, imperialism, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, freedom, family, and growing up are the core themes of the series.
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The original cover of the first book in the series, entitled The Invasion, showing Jake as the protagonist.[1] | |
| Author | K. A. Applegate, Michael Grant |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | David Burroughs Mattingly |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | Scholastic Publishing |
| Published |
|
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback), audiobook |
| No. of books | 54 main series books; 10 companion books (List of books) |
Published between June 1996 and May 2001, the series consists of 54 books and includes ten companion books, eight of which fit into the series' continuity (the Animorphs Chronicles and Megamorphs books) and two that are gamebooks not fitting into the continuity (the Alternamorphs books).
The books were adapted into a television series of the same name on Nickelodeon, YTV and Global Television Network, which ran from 1998 to 1999. The series has also been adapted to audiobook form as well as a series of graphic novels starting in 2020. A film adaptation was officially announced in 2020.[5]
The story revolves around five teenage humans: Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (nicknamed Ax), who obtain the ability to transform into any animal they touch. Naming themselves "Animorphs" (a portmanteau of "animal morphers"),[6] they use their ability to battle a secret alien infiltration of Earth by a parasitic race of aliens resembling large slugs called Yeerks, that can take any living creature as a host by entering and merging with their brain through the ear canal. The Animorphs fight as a guerilla force against the Yeerks who are led by Visser Three, who uses an Andalite (a centaur-like race of aliens, which Ax belongs to) as a host.
Throughout the series, the Animorphs carefully protect their identities; the Yeerks assume that the Animorphs are a strike force sent by the Andalites, who created the transformation technology, to prevent them from conquering Earth. To protect their families from Yeerk reprisals, the Animorphs maintain this façade.
Though the Animorphs can assume the form of any animal they touch to acquire the DNA, there are several limitations to the ability. The most vital is that they cannot stay in animal form for more than two hours, or they will be unable to return to human form and the morphs become permanent. An Andalite term for this is "Nothlit". Others include having to de-morph back to human in between morphs, only tight clothing being able to be carried over with a morph, DNA allergies that can lose some control of the morphing ability, and having to consistently maintain concentration during a morph to prevent the animal's natural instincts from overwhelming their human intellect. A benefit to morphing is that it allows the team to heal any superficial, non-genetic injury, sustained as a human or in a morph. Also, while in morph, they can telepathically communicate with anyone nearby in what they call 'thought-speak'.
The series was originally conceived as a three-part series called The Changelings,[7] in which Jake was named Matt, and his little brother Joseph took the place of Cassie.[citation needed]
In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Applegate talked about the source of inspiration and realization for the Animorphs series: "I grew up loving animals and lived with the usual suburban menagerie of dogs, cats and gerbils", she said "I really wanted to find a way to get kids into the heads of various species and decided that a science-fiction premise was the way to do this". Applegate tried to accurately depict the various animals, and did research such as visiting "a raptor center where they rehabilitate injured birds".[8] "When Tobias becomes a hawk, I want the reader to see the world as a hawk might see it—to soar on the warm breezes and hurtle toward the ground to make a kill", she said.[8]
To develop the characters for Animorphs, Applegate would go through teenage magazines such as YM and Seventeen (both of which are referenced in the books when describing Rachel), cutting out pictures and piecing them together to get an idea of what sort of children the Animorphs would look like. Applegate stated in an interview online[9] that many of the names for her alien creatures, races, and locations are actually scrambled names of local street signs or companies that she happens to notice. For instance, the word nothlit was derived from the hotel name Hilton. In another interview, Applegate stated that she originally wanted the alien Andalite to have more standard and familiar forms, but was told by Scholastic to be more creative with the designs, which led to her giving them such a distinctive look.[10]
According to the Anibase (an officially-produced, Flash-based piece of software once available on the official Animorphs website with detailed information about each book), Applegate did not make up the titles for the Animorphs books: it was up to the Scholastic editors to create the titles for the books based on the outlines provided by the author, having to select a word that not only fit the book's storyline, but sounded good with the characteristic "The" preface. One of the author's favorite books, The Lord of the Rings, lent several words and images to Animorphs: the Sindarin plural word for Orc, "yrch", became Yeerk; the flaming red Eye of Sauron inspired the Crayak, and Ax's middle name, "Esgarrouth", is based on a town in the books called Esgaroth. The human name of Ax's brother, Elfangor, is Alan Fangor and his last name is in reference to the Fangor region or Fangorn Forest. Also there was a minor reference to Gondor, in the form of a fictional company named "Gondor Industries" in the 14th book.
Applegate's writing was inspired by her family. All books after The Unknown were dedicated to Applegate's first daughter, Clara, under her former name, as well as Applegate's husband and co-writer, Michael. Her daughter was born premature in 1997, and Applegate worked on the Animorphs series at night, in the lobby of the hospital where she was in Neonatal Intensive Care (NIC).
The covers for 55 books in the series were designed by David B. Mattingly using the software Elastic Reality.[11] According to Mattingly, Scholastic wasn't satisfied with the first two book covers.[12] Then-Creative Director David Tommasino knew Mattingly had experience working digitally and reached out to him. Mattingly had never done a morph before, but ordered a copy of Elastic Reality and completed a sample within two days, which eventually became the cover for book #3: The Encounter.
Each of Mattingly's covers took two weeks to create, from pencil sketch to finished digital render and required painting, since the Elastic Reality program produced smeared or stretched material. Mattingly would do the covers first, then the cutbacks. Since Scholastic wanted the covers to feature photorealistic humans, model reference photos were taken by photographer Addie Passen at her Union Square studio. According to Paige Tiffany, the model for most of Rachel's books, each photoshoot would only take between 30-60 minutes.[13] Due to most of the models aging out, only Cassie's model was used continuously throughout the series.
The covers not designed by Mattingly are issues #1: The Invasion (designed by Peter Bollinger), #2: The Visitor (designed by Tim O'Brien), #9: The Secret, #10: The Android and #12: The Reaction (each designed by Damon C. Torres & The I-Way Company). In addition, Romas Kukalis provided cover art for the limited Animorphs Chronicles series. Mattingly used Kukalis' version of the Andalites as reference for his covers.[14]
Throughout the publication of the series, there was some dispute about the exact ages of the Animorphs at the time they obtained the ability to morph. However, with the help of various hints in the course of the series, many fans guessed their ages to be approximately thirteen to fourteen (with thirteen being the more likely) at the start. For example, at the beginning of #1: The Invasion, Jake mentions having tried out for his junior high basketball team and not making it. This puts Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, and Marco, at the very least, around the age of eleven to fourteen, as junior high (or middle school) in the United States is generally grades six/seven through eight. However, as Marco describes them as "idiot teenagers with a death wish" in the first book, it is very likely that some or most of them are older than twelve. This is also supported in #2: The Visitor, when Rachel looks at a photo "taken a couple of years ago" of her and Melissa Chapman, taken on Melissa's "twelfth birthday, or some birthday." Although Rachel cannot remember what birthday it was, this supports the idea that the Animorphs are either thirteen or fourteen. In #22: The Solution, Rachel states that Jake is "not even in high school." This suggests that none of the characters are, because they eat lunch together in school earlier in that book. #26: The Attack definitively confirms the characters attending middle school when Jake, in the first chapter, says that he is "a middle-school kid" in his narration. Also, in #41: The Familiar, Jake wakes up one morning as a twenty-five-year-old, and in the preview for that book in the previous one, it says he sleeps for a decade, suggesting that his age was fifteen before his journey into the future.
#52: The Sacrifice provided a clear answer as to the question of grade level. In the first chapter of the book, Ax says in his narration that Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco are all currently of age to be attending high school. This puts the Animorphs' ages as anywhere between fourteen and eighteen (as high-school students in the United States typically fall within this age range). However, the publication of #53: The Answer offered a definite answer to the question of age. Jake says outright at the start of the second chapter that he is sixteen, started the war when he was thirteen, and has been fighting the war for over three years. Marco also states in chapter eight of the final book that Jake is sixteen. Throughout the course of the final book, two or three more years passed. Cassie mentions that she is nineteen in her final scene of the book, although the other characters' ages are never explicitly confirmed. In the end, the characters are either nineteen or twenty years old, depending on how long they had been in space just before the series' conclusion.
Each book in the series revolved around a given event during the war waged between the Animorphs and the invading Yeerks. Within a year and a half after the first book was published, the series had close to ten million copies in print, with Scholastic claiming a "stronger initial sell-in" than any of its other series up to that time.[16] The series debut was preceded by a large marketing campaign which included posters on buildings, giveaway items in bookstores, and ads on Nickelodeon TV.[16]
In the United States, the books were most popular as A5-sized paperback volumes, and were usually between 150 and 200 pages long, divided into just under thirty chapters.
The front covers featured images of the narrating Animorph undergoing the various stages of one of the morphs from the story, with a few exceptions. Behind the morphing character were images of clouds and skies, which became more colorful and elaborate as the series progressed. All the covers of the regular series books had a small cutout over part of the full morph's anatomy, revealing a computer-generated illustration on the first page, which was printed on glossy paper. The illustration shared the image of the full morph with the front cover, but placed within an environment from the story. The book spines repeated the narrating character's face from the front cover, and the spine color changed with every new episode, resulting in a very colorful collection when viewed from any angle. A small excerpt from one of the book's chapters was printed on the inside of every front cover.[17] As of the eighth book, The Alien, the Animorphs logo, the author's name, and the book's title were printed in glossy, metallic-look ink, rather than the flat colors that had been used for the first seven books. In addition, the author's name and book title were surrounded by solid black rectangles. The majority of the books in the series were printed only in "metallic-ink editions". All further reprintings of the first seven books had this treatment applied to them as well.
The books in the series' final arc, beginning with the 45th book, The Revelation had yet another treatment applied to the cover, a variation on the new metallic style; the change affected only the main 'Animorphs' logo: instead of consisting of white letters superimposed on a metallic, colored background, the last ten books featured a logo with colored letters over a dark grey background, in contrast with the white logo background from the series' "opening arc". The final book, #54 The Beginning had a unique cover style, with the logo consisting of a glowing outline.
Every book featured an introduction to the series on the back cover, in the voice of Jake, one of the Animorphs.
We can't tell you who we are. Or where we live. It's too risky, and we've got to be careful. Really careful. So we don't trust anyone. Because if they find us... well, we just won't let them find us. The thing you should know is that everyone is in really big trouble. Yeah. Even you.
As of book 51, The Absolute, the introduction read as follows:
Here's the deal these days: They know exactly who we are. They know exactly where we live. We've got a few secrets left, and we're gonna use them. But just know that the end is coming. And we don't know how much longer we can do this. How much longer can we fight. What about you? Where will you be when it ends? Think about it. Think hard. Because the countdown has already begun...
In addition to this text, each book also carried an introduction, or teaser, to its own storyline.
Another feature of the books was a flipbook composed of the bottom right-hand corners of all of the book's pages. A step of the cover morph was printed on each page, less than an inch tall, in black-and-white. When the pages were flipped from front to back, the narrating Animorph could be seen morphing into the animal.[18]
The Animorphs series was printed in over twenty-five languages and other English-language markets, and the books in those countries sometimes had different designs, layouts, cover quotes, and even different cover morphs, as is the case for the fifth book, The Predator, whose UK edition showed Marco morphing into a lobster, in contrast to the American edition's gorilla morph. Japanese-language covers were hand-drawn; The Invasion showed Jake morphing into his dog Homer, a morph that was featured on the cover of The Threat in the American editions. Gallimard Jeunesse is the French publisher and Tammi is the Finnish publisher. The German publisher, Ravensburger, has also published some of the volumes as audio plays.
In 2010, Scholastic announced plans to re-release the series with new lenticular covers and updated pop culture references.[19] The re-release lasted from May 2011 to September 2012, ending after #8: The Alien due to tepid sales.[citation needed]
The series consists of 54 books and includes ten companion books, eight of which fit into the series' continuity (the Animorphs Chronicles and Megamorphs books) and two that are gamebooks not fitting into the continuity (the Alternamorphs books).
Many of the novels from the #25-#52 range were written by ghostwriters. Typically, K. A. Applegate would write a detailed outline for each book, and a ghostwriter, usually one of Applegate's former editors or writing protégés, would spend a month or two writing the actual novel. After this, Applegate, and later her series editor, Tonya Alicia Martin, would edit the book to make it fit in with the series' tight continuity. Ghostwriters are credited for their help in the book's dedication page: "The author would like to thank [ghostwriter name] for his/her help in preparing this manuscript".
The only books in this range fully written by Applegate herself after #26: The Attack are #32: The Separation, #53: The Answer, #54: The Beginning and all of the Megamorphs and Chronicles books.
The following books in the series were ghostwritten:[20]
Applegate originally intended to write every Animorphs book herself. However, due to many contributing factors—such as the birth of her child and the difficulties involved in writing Everworld (which was originally intended to be mostly ghostwritten, like Applegate's third Scholastic series Remnants), she ended up having a large number of the books ghostwritten.
The Animorphs toy line was introduced in 1999 by Hasbro. They were marketed as part of the Transformers series, despite there being no in-universe connection between the two franchises. However, the Animorphs toys were commercially unsuccessful and the toy line was soon cancelled. After the cancellation, several toys planned to be part of the Animorphs line were slightly remodeled and released as part of the Beast Wars Mutants line.
A television series of the same name ran from September 1998 to March 2000 in the United States and Canada. Animorphs comprised 26 episodes over two seasons, which aired on YTV (first season) and Global (second season) in Canada and Nickelodeon in the United States. The show was executively produced by Deborah A. Forte and Bill Siegler, and was set in most of Toronto, Canada. The animals were supplied by the Bowmanville Zoo. This series makes several changes to the books with the names of Marco's father Peter being changed to Jeremy, Jake's mother and father, Jean and Steve being changed to Nikki and Greg, and Cassie's mother Michelle being Aisha, as well as other plot changes, such as the morphs, with Jake's morph being a white tiger, Rachel being a lion instead of an elephant and grizzly bear, Marco being a wolf rather than Cassie instead of a gorilla, and Tobias being a Harris's hawk rather than a red-tailed hawk, and some of the others being omitted, due to budget issues.
In September 2015, several film websites began reporting rumors that Universal Pictures had plans to adapt the book series into a film, based on a report by the film website The Tracking Board.[21] The site also claimed that Universal would be working with Silvertongue Films, a production house launched to develop Scholastic books into feature films, and that Deborah Forte would be producing.[22][23]
In June 2020, it was formally announced that an Animorphs film would be produced by Scholastic Entertainment, and Picturestart, the latter run by Erik Feig and Lucy Kitada. Script development will be overseen by Caitlin Friedman and Royce Reeves Darby.[24]
Animorphs authors Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant initially agreed to collaborate on the project, but in October 2020 Grant announced via Twitter that he and Applegate would not be a part of the film's production, citing "creative differences".[25] Grant later clarified his remark, wishing the producers the best and noting he and Applegate simply were not being involved enough in the production process.[26]
Animorphs: Know the Secret is an action-adventure game, released for Microsoft Windows.[27] Developed by Gigawatt Studios and published by Infogrames,[27] it lets the player to switch control between four of the Animorphs (Cassie, Jake, Marco and Rachel).[27][28] They will explore different environments searching for clues as to why the activities of Yeerks have gone down.[27] The Animorphs have access to a number of specific forms they can change into, which can increase by finding more animals on the way.[28]
Animorphs: Shattered Reality is a platform video game, released for PlayStation. Developed by SingleTrac, it revolves around four of the Animorphs trying to find pieces of the Continuum Crystal before Visser Three does.[29]
A Game Boy Color game was also published by Ubisoft.
In 2020 Scholastic Audio began releasing an uncut audio version of the series on Audible. Books 1 and 2 were released on January 7, 2020, with subsequent releases on the first or second Tuesday of each month for 5 months. There was a brief hiatus, then books 11 and 12 were released on January 26, 2021, following the same pattern. After another hiatus 21 and 22 were released on November 8, 2021, following the same way. Since June 2022, Books 31 and on have been released on the first Tuesday of every month. Six narrators are used, one for each of the main characters. MacLeod Andrews narrates Jake (and Elfangor, for The Andalite Chronicles), Emily Ellet for Rachel, Michael Crouch for Tobias, Sisi Aisha Johnson for Cassie, Ramón de Ocampo for Marco, and Adam Verner for Ax. Mark Bramhall narrates as Jake's Civil War ancestor Isaiah Fitzhenry for parts of book #47, The Resistance.
Scholastic announced plans to launch a graphic novel adaptation of Animorphs via its Scholastic Graphix imprint. The first release, adapting The Invasion, was released on October 6, 2020, with art by Eisner-Award nominee Chris Grine.[30] The second novel, adapting The Visitor, was released on October 5, 2021.[31] The third novel, adapting The Encounter, was released on October 4, 2022. The fourth novel, adapting The Message, was released on December 5, 2023. The fifth novel, adapting The Predator, was released on August 20, 2024. The sixth novel, adapting The Capture will be released on March 4, 2025.
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