The Extreme (Animorphs #25)

In this episode, the Animorphs find out the enemy is building a structure in the Arctic that could populate the world with Yeerk pools (don't ask how) so they travel there to stop it. Only they don't have any animal morphs that can deal with the cold, and aren't prepared to withstand it as humans, either. So a lot of the book is them desperately trying to survive the cold (as wolves most of the time) while also trying to escape a new alien used by the enemy. At the very end they manage to acquire the polar bear, and then it's easy to live in the cold, they bash up the station, trick the aliens into disintegrating themselves (too easily) and run off. The part where they get the polar bear confused me, though. Rachel as a grizzly and show more Marco as a gorilla pinned a wild polar bear down while the others touched it to acquire its DNA, but there was no mention how they switched so that Rachel and Marco could also (they would have to be human to do so)? I also had a reading hitch when the Animorphs as seals were making clicking noises to echolocate underwater- until I looked it up afterwards. Turns out there's some evidence harbor seals may be able to echolocate to some degree. Well, I didn't know! What made this story flow was the characterization, banter between them all, Ax involved in jokes about time, and the growing romantic feelings between Tobias and Rachel, Cassie and Jake.

from the Dogear Diary show less

A short comment for every book of the series until I get a chance to re-read them. All three of my sons and I loved this series and read every single book - I even bought every single book (most, but not all, used; some through school book sales). I'm excited to re-read them to see how the five main characters develop and to watch all the different transformations again.

The best books appeal to *readers* universally - not children versus adults. These may not be quite worthy of the adjective 'best' but they do have that crossover appeal.

Fun fluff series that gets less and less fluff over time.

Animorphs was a good series that kept me reading. Enjoyed these as a kid.

They don't go to the north pole, as the description says. No landmass on the north pole.