Coffee and Books from a Mom: First Post, revisiting the Animorphs series

Today’s coffee:

Nespresso iced latte with oat milk, vanilla syrup, and brown sugar sweet cream.

Today's book:

Animorphs: The Invasion by Katherine Applegate

With my 40th birthday fast approaching at the end of August, I figured I'd launch this Coffee Book Mom blog with a dive into nostalgia--the books I used to read in the car on road trips to San Diego as a kid probably less than 10 years old (I remember getting to middle school and my Reading teacher preferring the class challenge themselves with something a little higher level). Animorphs books were HOT, and not just because my local Barnes and Noble had tons of them to choose from. The stories were deep and kept me hooked. I'm pretty sure I read at least 60 of them (Is it any wonder I grew up to be a librarian? Oh and a writer).

So join me in my deep dive revisiting the world of Yeerks, Andalites, morphing, and 90s slang.

The premise: Jake, Marco, Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie are five kids/teenagers (ages unclear on purpose) gifted the power of Andalite aliens (think big blue centaurs) to morph into any animal they touch in order to help fight the Yeerk invasion (evil alien slugs who enter human brains and turn them into Controllers). With Yeerks controlling Jake's brother and Marco's mom, the fight becomes even more personal. Every book reveals a little more about each character's distinct personalities and a little more about the horrors of war. But for kids!

Book 1: The Invasion

Given the time my role as "mom" takes up (I currently have a 7 year old autistic son and a 4 year old wild child), I can only revisit this nostalgia in audiobook form. I was never much of a fan of audiobooks as a kid or adult, but my mind craves something to keep me occupied while driving in the car to and from child pickups, so audiobooks (with good narrators) have managed to fill that need. Thus, I didn't listen to the audiobook version when I was younger. (I did, however, listen to the audiobook of favorite middle grade novel Ella Enchanted over and over again because I adore voice actress Eden Riegel). With the deep man's voice reading the warning against unauthorized copying at the beginning, I was a little nervous if this audiobook would be able to hold my interest. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the voice quickly switched to narrator MacLeod Andrews, whose voice sounded just young enough to pull off Jake (who tells book 1 from his perspective) without sounding too young or old. He also does a convincing Tobias and even a convincing Marco (who, as a person of Mexican heritage myself I both take issue and appreciate the slight Mexican accent he affects). His female voices (Rachel and Cassie) are pretty identical except Cassie is quieter. Not great, but gets the job done.

On to the actual content! I've been listening to the story from an almost 40-year-old perspective instead of an almost 10-year-old perspective, so I've been trying to see if it "ages well." There is a reference to "mall rats" and running out of quarters for games at the mall. They're clearly playing video games at an arcade. And while any remaining arcades of today look quite different than the ones from the 90s, I pictured the claw machine arcades and ski ball games that do still exist at my local mall and didn't feel it was too cringe. The kids (teens?) say "cool" a lot, which still works. They also say "dweeb", which works less so. And there's references to being famous on "Letterman," which is not something a kid in the 2020s OR the 90s would say.

But the story isn't really about the setting. After descriptions of the characters and learning a little bit about Jake's family (brother is a superstar basketball player, he is not), the five kids/teens encounter an alien spaceship in an abandoned construction site and are gifted the power to morph into any animal they touch.

The first thought-speak line <I know> is delivered especially ominously--props to the voice actor.

And...what the flip?? I remembered that the Andalite who gifted the kids their powers had died, but we're here at book one and not only did this character who was just introduced sacrifice himself but he is eaten alive?? With bits of him falling to the Taxxon warriors. I did NOT remember the horror element of this sci-fi kids series. Although my parents did take me to see Jurassic Park when I was 7 and my little brother was 5. So maybe we were desensitized at that point.

Having not remembered what happened next, I was kind of hoping Jake would use the morphing powers to escape--touch some bug or something and crawl away. But he just ran and they all somehow magically...got home safely? It just seemed a little too easy. Also, why did the big evil alien decide on such a public space to unleash all these aliens if he is trying to keep things undercover? I'm sure he thinks he’s powerful enough to destroy everything, but the abandoned construction site where all this happened had actual homeless camps!

The characters spend a little too much time talking about how the events they witnessed had to be a dream. I get that sci-fi alien stuff would feel that way if it happened in the real world but it did get a little repetitive.

Jake mentioned "eyes I can see only in my memory" when talking about Tobias. Foreshadowing, perhaps?

Marco says a line about wanting to live long enough to get drivers licenses, so we can safely assume they are younger than 16.

The lizard scene was cool, and I'm glad Jake experimented with something new, but dang that was such a coincidence that he just happened to follow Chapman at the exact time he was going to the Yeerk pool and the Yeerk pool just happened to be accessible under his own school instead of, like, an entire state away or something, given that aliens do travel by space ships.

Weird that Cassie had to explain that "meds" stood for "medicine." I guess that wasn't commonly known in the 90s?

Okay, that's pretty poor security for a real zoo if teenagers can just sneak back with the dangerous animals and unlock zoo cages unsupervised. I feel like all this is just a bit too convenient (obviously, so we can get to the action of animals attacking Yeerk pools). If there was more time in the book, I would have had the kids researching places where you can actually touch large animals--maybe a Circus or Ren Fair or some special museum exhibit. As a child in the 90s I got to sit next to a tiger outside of Ron Lee's World of Clowns and hold an actual lion cub at my local museum of natural history. At the time I thought this was just something everyone did, and now as an adult I realize that we got pretty darn lucky (no way would they let me just pet a cheetah at the San Diego Zoo even though that's one of my dreams).

If I still had the 90s lion and tiger photos I would absolutely show them.
So instead, here's one of me acquiring a kangaroo morph at a small local zoo in 2013.

So for a book about turning into animals, they don't really turn into animals much. But I know they're still learning and I guess the series does take it seriously that suddenly gaining "superpowers" would take time to master. I'm definitely eager for more in book 2.

The kids/teens don't have a plan for sneaking into the Yeerk pool either. They could morph into a bug or a lizard or pretend to be Controllers, but instead Marco just happens to know a window in the science lab that doesn't lock so they can sneak into the school instead of morphing into a gorilla and breaking the door (I know that could cause future problems, but still--the 90s kid in me wants to see animals NOW). I'll allow it since they do address in book 2 that bugs might not have the same senses we have, and of course, there is the very real possibility of getting squished.

Did Rachel just crush a Hork-Bajir??

Oh yes, she's crushing Taxxons and throwing humans as a giant elephant. Cool battle imagery for my 9-year-old self, but this 39-year-old is a little horrified. I mean, there were innocent beings that just probably died (you can't tell in the middle of the fight who is a voluntary controller and who isn't).

I'm still wondering if having Yeerks return to the pool every three days is too frequent. Three days is pretty frequent for a big chunk of the population to just need to step out away from all non-Controller family and friends, even if they're re-pooling is staggered.

Big battle with Visser 3, whose ego seems to get in the way of victory as a large FIRE-BREATHING alien morph can't easily climb stairs. I like that he thinks the kids are Andalite warriors. Also, realistic that the group could only really retreat and ultimately was only able to save one human in the end, and not Tom. That would have been too easy, too predictable. Tom continues as a Controller and Jake will continue to be conflicted and tormented. But it makes for good story. Also wondering just what happened to the woman. It's not like anyone will believe her if she shares about alien invasions, but if I recall correctly, she's never brought up again.

I was able to listen to the whole thing in just a little over three hours (over the course of a few days). So did the story hold up? Well, I'm starting book 2 now, so I think the story, action, and characters definitely make me want to keep reading. On to Rachel's perspective!