Animorphs: The Invasion

The Invasion is the first book in the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate. It was published in 1996, and is narrated by the character Jake. The book starts with Jake telling his readers that he can't say who he is or where he lives, and implying that the world is in danger. He then backs up and tells us why this is and how everything started.

Jake and Marco, who are best friends, leave the mall one evening to head home. As they leave, they find that Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias are also leaving. The five kids all attend the same junior high school. The five kids decide to take a shortcut through an abandoned construction site, even though they have been told not to go through it. However, as they go through it they suddenly see an alien spacecraft flying through the sky. The spacecraft lands nearby, and the alien pilot emerges. He turns out to be an Andalite named Elfangor, and he knows that he is near death from wounds he has procured in battle. In a last desperate attempt to save humankind, Elfangor tells the five kids about the alien parasites named Yeerks, who are secretly taking over Earth by turning humans into Controllers. A Yeerk infests a human through the ear canal and wraps around the brain, taking complete control over the human's body, despite the host's struggles. Andalites are coming to help save Earth, but Elfangor warns that it could be a year or more before they arrive. To keep Earth from becoming completely conquered in that time, Elfangor gives the humans the Andalites' most precious power: the ability to morph into any animal they touch. However, Elfangor warns them that if they stay for more than two hours in a morph, they will be trapped in the body of that animal forever. At that point, Yeerk ships arrive, and Elfangor urges the humans to flee. Tobias stays behind for a moment, and Elfangor dumps more information into his mind. The humans hide and watch as Visser Three- a very powerful Yeerk controlling an Andalite body- arrives and kills Elfangor. The humans are discovered, but split up and flee to safety.

The next morning Jake hopes that it was all a dream, but his hopes are dashed when Tobias arrives and informs him that he morphed his pet cat. After connecting with the others and being confronted by a police officer about the night before, the kids realize that no one is safe: the policeman and even Jake's brother Tom turn out to be Controllers. The kids attend the Sharing, a community club for all ages, after guessing that it is a front for the Yeerks. They discover that their hunch was correct, and also that their assistant principal Chapman is a Controller.

The next day Jake morphs into a green anole lizard in his locker in order to spy on Chapman, and discovers there is an entrance to the Yeerk pool, where Yeerks go to feed, in his school. The newly-christened Animorphs go to the Gardens (an amusement park and zoo) to acquire new, powerful morphs. That evening they prepare to enter the Yeerk pool, and find out at the last minute the policeman who questioned them has captured Cassie to be made into a Controller. They desperately enter the Yeerk pool, and fight the Controllers there in order to rescue Cassie. They are vastly outnumbered, and are not able to rescue Tom as they originally planned. Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie escape, but Tobias is forced to hide. By the time he manages to esape he had been in morph for more than two hours, so he is now stuck as a red-tailed hawk. They failed to rescue Tom, but Jake promises that they will keep fighting to free him and everyone else until the Yeerks come.