I have been chatting with Miss Bungle, and I remembered a series of books that I read to my kids when they were young.  It was called the Animorphs series, though each book had its own title.  Eventually they got old enough to read and understand the books on their own.

I recall the stories even appealed to me, but for entirely different reasons (the idea of being able to change your body at will).

Did anyone read books from this series?  Or things like it, with the theme of being able to change your presentation?

Perhaps, too, these sorts of stories would appeal to the furry community.

    

If I remember well, the Animorphs series was about a group of kids who met with an alien, and who granted them thr ability to transform into certain animals.

Of course, maybe I'm thinking of something else XD I think I may or may not have read all those books. I remember reading all of The Guardians of Ga'Hoole, and a few other series, but I can't ever remember any of the details...

I did and I read them for the same reason.

Quote from: VenomGaia on June 29, 2013, 11:26:25 PM
If I remember well, the Animorphs series was about a group of kids who met with an alien, and who granted them the ability to transform into certain animals.

That's the one.  They battled the Yeerks.

OMG, I LOVED this book series when I was younger! It was by far my absolute favorite.

I read book 1 back when it first came out when I was in 5th grade, and read every single one of them up until about book 25.

And yeah... they are still an excellent read. Not anything like a typical kids' book whatsoever. Sure, at its core it's a good-versus evil battle against an alien invasion, but the themes that it touches on are VERY deep often, and I still absolutely love the characters. And K.A. Appelgate does a FANTASTIC job really describing what it would be like to actually be all of the different animals that the kids change into. Excellent sensory details.


And in case anyone is interested, the basic plot of the story is that there's an alien invasion going on. A race called the Yeerks, which take over people's minds by slithering into their brains and taking over their minds. They're trying to take over the human race. And as a last ditch effort to save humanity, a dying creature called an Andalite gives 5 kids the power to morph... to become any animal that they can touch for up to 2 hours at a time. And it's up to them to keep the yeerks from taking over the world. (And again, KA does a FANTASTIC job of describing all of the sensory details about what it's like to become all of the different animals. That is probably what I liked about this series the most as a kid.)

And yeah, I'll admit, I did write fanfiction where I changed into a girl, based on the continuity of this series... go figure.

May be reviving a dead topic, but I absolutely loved the Animorphs series, I remember being in high school and waiting for the last 4 books of the series to slowly get to my town's bookstore. I got the last couple for Christmas one year and read them both that same day. I really loved the series she did after Animorphs too, it was called Remnants.

I don't know what it was about Animorphs that got me. I know I loved all the details she came up with about the transforming into animals, with the little blue box and how *spoiler* near the end of the series they were able to recruit more kids.

*more spoilers*
It's kind of striking now how much I identified with the point near the end of the series where the main kids had to explain to their parents what they were. At the time I had this huge unrealized transgender secret that my parents didn't know about.

I read those too, although I never brought any of them new, so I could only read the ones I found at charity shops, and they were hardly ever in order.  I sort of lost interest when I got to the end and less books were out there for me to read, although it seems like the story got more interesting as it went on (did someone die?)

For me the books from Ax's point of view (the "friendly alien") were the best.  I suppose if you read into that you could say that it was because he was trying to fit into a culture and world he didn't understand, and having to walk around in a body that wasn't his (he morphed into a body made up of the composite DNA of the other main characters so that he could walk around without looking like a blue centaur/scorpion/thing).

I was always intrigued by how Ax managed to comprehend what he was seeing actually, because he had those extra eyes which could look wherever he wanted them too as well as the ones on his face.

My favourite character was Rachel. She was so badass. *spoiler* (Yes, she dies, in the last book, in combat on a suicide mission to take out Tom, Jake's brother.) I also may have had a crush on her.

I liked Jake too, so much so that I almost named myself after him when I was changing my name.

I kind of want to read the books again. I may be way too old for them now, but it was a good story.

Aw aw aw this was my favourite way to escape reality when I was younger! I so remember flicking through the pages to see the "animation" in the bottom right corner. It was soooo good! I always wished I could transform like that too lol.

The episodes are on Youtube, I watched like 15 episodes or something not long ago actually. It's quite corny now but brings back such sweet memories.

Really liked this series. I remember also watching the TV how, which was really weird...
I really liked the Chronicles series and The Ellimist Chronicles, is one of the books that really got me into sci-fi

Quote from: Carrie Liz on June 29, 2013, 11:53:33 PM
OMG, I LOVED this book series when I was younger! It was by far my absolute favorite.

I read book 1 back when it first came out when I was in 5th grade, and read every single one of them up until about book 25.

And yeah... they are still an excellent read. Not anything like a typical kids' book whatsoever. Sure, at its core it's a good-versus evil battle against an alien invasion, but the themes that it touches on are VERY deep often, and I still absolutely love the characters. And K.A. Appelgate does a FANTASTIC job really describing what it would be like to actually be all of the different animals that the kids change into. Excellent sensory details.


And in case anyone is interested, the basic plot of the story is that there's an alien invasion going on. A race called the Yeerks, which take over people's minds by slithering into their brains and taking over their minds. They're trying to take over the human race. And as a last ditch effort to save humanity, a dying creature called an Andalite gives 5 kids the power to morph... to become any animal that they can touch for up to 2 hours at a time. And it's up to them to keep the yeerks from taking over the world. (And again, KA does a FANTASTIC job of describing all of the sensory details about what it's like to become all of the different animals. That is probably what I liked about this series the most as a kid.)

And yeah, I'll admit, I did write fanfiction where I changed into a girl, based on the continuity of this series... go figure.

YES!! I loved this series too as a kid. This and Goosebumps were the two big series I read as a kid.

Interesting tidbit, both of these series were published by Scholastic. The same company that published Harry Potter in America. Sorry, I work in a library. Sometimes I just nerd out on book series I love.

And yes, I probably wrote down similar fan fiction like you did.

I loved this series so much. Tobias was by far my favorite, followed by Ax. I liked how they both come at being human sort of sideways.

*mid-series spoilers*
I especially stuck on Tobias' relationship with Rachel. She wants him to go back to being human permanently, but he considers his original form an uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing morph (and one he usually takes for her benefit) rather than his real body. As a depressed kid feeling like my body didn't quite fit but not sure what would, that liminality and frustration appealed.

Rufio,

That is a great interpretation of Tobias!

He was also my favorite character. Followed by Rachel and Ax.

Sarah