#K. A. Applegate

[perfectlynormalbooks]

retypeset/bind of The Beginning by K. A. Applegate, the final book of the Animorphs series! Done as a gift for a friend as thanks for managing a very long-running Animorphs book club for us. Did my best to match the internal styling and fonts of the original paperback books, while still having a little fun with the cover and design.

[doyouknowthischaracter]

DO YOU KNOW THIS CHARACTER?

[ziekaramaik]

Me: I shouldn't feel bad about taking so long to finish my animorphs fanfiction. It took K. A. Applegate a full five years to get to the end of the real thing.

Also Me: But during those five years they consistently published a complete book every single month, along with occasional bonus books.

Me: Shut up.

[selwyngrimm]

Neat!

[random-jot]

(If you liked both, pick which of the two you were more into overall)

[abuddyforeveryseason]

This is the Buddy for March 18th. It's an Animorph. The Animorphs book series is infamous for its creepy covers. I know the series was pretty popular, but I've always felt those covers were a real turn-off which kept me from even trying out the series. I was a Goosebumps guy, first and foremost.

Of course nostalgic fans now say Animorphs was a better series. More mature and better written, with a more interesting plot which evolved from book to book. And with more didatic elements.

And if the covers were creepy, that's cause the writing inside them was creepy too. The description of the morphing scenes were pretty gross, and there was a lot of heavy stuff going on. For instance, this passage from book 5:

"I saw Rachel, too. She had a dark look in her eyes. Like she hadn’t slept. Like something was really wrong.

Even Cassie seemed grim. It had gotten to all of us. It’s not so easy to just forget terror. It’s not easy to just ignore the memory of your leg being ripped off.

Of being dismembered. Torn apart.

One of these days, I thought, one of us is going to go crazy. Totally, lock-me-up-in-a-rubber-room nutso. It was too much. This wasn’t how life was supposed to be.

One of us would snap. One of us would lose it. It could happen, even to strong people.

I knew. It had happened to my father. I used to think nothing could ever destroy him. But my mom’s death had."

Jesus Christ, did I pick up a copy of Johnny Got His Gun instead of a kid's book by accident?

Still, I never read them when I was a kid, and, as an adult, they don't hold a lot of interest. It's kind of unpleasant to revisit stuff you loved as a child once you're older, because it can feel rather empty and small. And checking out the stuff you weren't interested in when growing up is even worse. There's no bittersweet memories there, just nonsense aimed at an audience you're no longer a part of.

Which is kind of why nostalgia is kind of a dumb thing. Sure, I could say the books and movies of my childhood were the best ones in the world, but only the ones I actually happened to check out. If I missed a movie in theaters when I was a kid and only see it twenty years later, I might not be too impressed. No good memories of it, after all.

That's not to say there isn't quality work being done, even in the baloney-factory that is kids' entertainment. It's just that nostalgia goggles can make even stuff that's unmemorable feel a lot more interesting, and not having nostalgic feelings for something can make it seem bland and hollow, just because you're no longer the target audience.

And it's a pity because, the Animorphs books aren't bad by themselves. They're just not interesting when the person reading them is an adult who knew nothing about the series other than "that thing with the creepy covers I saw in libraries when I was a kid".

Which just goes to show one should never judge a book by its cover. Or, to put it another way, publishers need to be careful when choosing covers for their books. Can you imagine a What If world where the Animorphs covers were painted by Tim Jacobus? Would look amazing.

Speaking of the covers themselves, today's Buddy was traced from this book's:

It features Marco, the most Buddy-like of the Animorphs. I originally made a mistake in the background that made it looks like this:

I think it looks better, even if it was an accident, but it breaks my rule of only using three colors, so I had to make a quick fix. Oops.

[csthurman]

The End of the Year

My home by Allagar – Deviant art Here we are at the end of the year. This has been a crazy time and filled with tons of new stuff for me to unpack. I realize that I missed November’s time for posting and for that, I am deeply sorry. It’s always a bit of a nice surprise to see how many people come to my website to check for anything new when I haven’t posted. To be fair I only missed last month…

[iamnotathornbird]

If you guys were on here at 11 years old what would you be posting about

[tintededges]

Animorphs The Graphic Novel: The Encounter

Graphic novel adaptation of middle grade sci-fi series Animorphs The novelty of my favourite series as a ten year old being adapted into graphic novels has not yet worn off, and I eagerly ordered the next one for my Short Stack Reading Challenge. Photo is of “Animorphs the Graphic Novel: The Encounter” by K. A. Applegate and Michael Grant, and adapted by Chris Grine. The paperback book is…

[sittinwithyou]

Seven Covers in Seven Days, pt 4.

If you like this, feel obligated to tag someone else you wanna see more books from.

@ruthybaby, I don't know you, but the tag monster chose you from the aether.

This book taught me that science-fiction doesn't have to be Dune to be good. And I'll probably even stay awake through most of it.

[kinsey3furry300]

Which episodic YA series fucked you up?

as In, what's the first one you can remember genuinely frightening or upsetting you?

There will be a second bracket for series I could not fit in this poll (Percy Jackson, Noughts and Crosses, Maximum Ride, Cherub, Mortal Engines, Artimis Fowl, Shapeshifter, Deptford Mice, Mistborn ect.)

[stainlesssteellocust]

hey animorphs what’s your take on the whole “why do the monsters only attack Tokyo” thing

oh okay thank you animorphs

[a-book-of-creatures]

And since I just reposted something about Animorphs, here's more required reading - K. A. Applegate's letter to the fans after the series ended. Removing spoilers just in case because you need to go out there and read every one of the 60 or so books.

Dear Animorphs Readers: Quite a number of people seem to be annoyed by the final chapter in the Animorphs story. There are a lot of complaints that [spoilers]. That there was no grand, final fight-to-end-all-fights. That there was no happy celebration. And everyone is mad about the cliffhanger ending. So I thought I'd respond. Animorphs was always a war story. Wars don't end happily. Not ever. Often relationships that were central during war, dissolve during peace. Some people who were brave and fearless in war are unable to handle peace, feel disconnected and confused. Other times people in war make the move to peace very easily. Always people die in wars. And always people are left shattered by the loss of loved ones. That's what happens, so that's what I wrote. [spoilers] That doesn't by any means cover everything that happens in a war, but it's a start. Here's what doesn't happen in war: there are no wondrous, climactic battles that leave the good guys standing tall and the bad guys lying in the dirt. Life isn't a World Wrestling Federation Smackdown. Even the people who win a war, who survive and come out the other side with the conviction that they have done something brave and necessary, don't do a lot of celebrating. There's very little chanting of 'we're number one' among people who've personally experienced war. I'm just a writer, and my main goal was always to entertain. But I've never let Animorphs turn into just another painless video game version of war, and I wasn't going to do it at the end. I've spent 60 books telling a strange, fanciful war story, sometimes very seriously, sometimes more tongue-in-cheek. I've written a lot of action and a lot of humor and a lot of sheer nonsense. But I have also, again and again, challenged readers to think about what they were reading. To think about the right and wrong, not just the who-beat-who. And to tell you the truth I'm a little shocked that so many readers seemed to believe I'd wrap it all up with a lot of high-fiving and backslapping. Wars very often end, sad to say, just as ours did: with a nearly seamless transition to another war. So, you don't like the way our little fictional war came out? You don't like [spoilers]? You don't like that one war simply led to another? Fine. Pretty soon you'll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents. If you're mad at me because that's what you have to take away from Animorphs, too bad. I couldn't have written it any other way and remained true to the respect I have always felt for Animorphs readers. K.A. Applegate

[90s-2000s-barbie]

Animorphs by K.A. Applegate (1998 - 2001)

[severalrodentsdrinkingtea]

Cannot stop thinking about Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan and Dak Hamee. He was born as an omen of his people’s destruction. He loves to draw. She was studying him from day one. They played in the trees together. She introduced him to the stars and she taught him how to kill. She watched her family be burned alive. He resents her and he loves her. She loves him and she uses him. They are more alone among their own people than with each other. She holds a deep belief in Andalite superiority even though she knows it hurts him. She betrays her own people. She becomes a nothlit so if the biological weapon those people made goes off, she’ll die with him. He didn’t believe she’d do it. They named their child after the man who unleashed the Yeerks’ invasion of the galaxy. They probably died in captivity. Their child probably died in captivity. Their great grandchild is the first free-born Hork-Bajir in many years. She is named after the child of another mismatched pair of aliens thanks to the power of morphing—he is the reason she is free at all.

[book--brackets]

Second Competition FINAL: Animorphs vs A Series of Unfortunate Events