Over the last two months, I (re-)read the entire 54-book Animorphs series,* originally published by Scholastic in 1996-2001.

This series was formative for me. It, along with Brian Jacques’s Redwall, kicked off my interest in SFF. I remember thinking “‘science fiction’ must mean something that could be true—like people being infested by Yeerks and no one knowing about it.” I remember ordering the books via the Scholastic Book Club in the late 90s, through newsprint catalogs that looked like this.

Despite these memories, I had only ever finished about two-thirds of the series, and I knew nothing of how it ended, except grimly.

Present day: I and a few co-readers had been talking about returning to the series for some time. The ebooks are freely available on the Internet, with the author’s approval. In 2022, I could find no greater comfort than indulging in the stories I’d loved as a child. Thus: my Great Animorphs Re-Read. There are far too many books in the series to do individual reviews, but I will be sharing my big takeaways from a craft and storytelling perspective (series-end spoilers ahead).

So, without further ado…