Scars of Scholastic: The 'Animorphs' Fever Dream Never Really Ended
Like a lot of nostalgic 90s readers, I took the news that Ryan Coogler’s Proximity Media is officially developing an Animorphs series for Disney+ with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.
I loved the series as a kid. Every month, I eagerly awaited the book fair to see who the next character on the cover would be, caught mid-transition into a Siberian tiger, a grizzly, or some alien. I constantly questioned if people around me had a slug inside of their brain controlling all of their thoughts, and desperately made attempts at acquiring the DNA of various animals to protect me, just in case.
But the series itself feels almost like a fever dream, a suppressed memory with an air of “you just had to be there.” It faded in popularity quickly once the series became largely ghostwritten, and the several attempts at coming back over the years—including a reprint of the first eight books with new covers and updated text in 2011, the first six novels re-released as graphic novels in 2025, and another reprint of the first three books in 2026—haven’t been successful.
This piqued my curiosity as to why, especially among younger generations. Pre-teens everywhere lined up around the block for these books when they were at their prime. Not only did it influence thoughts and make kids everywhere into mini conspiracy theorists, but the series is also a 50+-book visceral war drama that captures the psychological deterioration of child soldiers, the impact of a government takeover, and what happens when innocence no longer exists.
As of this writing, I’ve made it past the first seven books of the series before deciding to chronicle the journey and dissect the series, because, honestly, many of the themes and plots explored in these novels still feel prevalent today.
Especially in regard to government takeover.
The Fever-Dream Still Exists
As a writer today, I can easily credit K.A. Applegate, Michael Grant, and the other various ghostwriters behind the Animorphs series with the foundation of my imagination and what happens when I let myself explore it. I stand in the shadow of giants when I take on themes of moral ambiguity, lean into the horrors of self-transformation, or identify the ways that trauma hollows out a hero.
Oddly, picking them up now at 37, three decades after they originally came out, I find that certain aspects of the series make me just as much a target of the demographic now as I was back then. Sure, the main intent is for pre-teens seeking adventure to find an escape through aliens and a threat to the human race, but a 30-something needing the same escape can also find it in the same series.
The fever-dream aspect of the series almost feels as if the original readers had to block out the memories on purpose because of the trauma they evoked. There is no such thing as a “clean win” in this series, which it taught to all of us at a young age.
This brings me hope that Coogler, the man behind Black Panther and Creed, will give us a great representation of the series through a modern lens, which I’d be curious to see. However, with all the changes these days—including AI eating books and changing what they say—I’m digging out the rest of the series and going back first.
