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Tobias finds a kid lost in the forest and he leads the rescue team to the spot where the kid is trapped- by speaking to the father- as a hawk! Of course this exposes him, and before he realizes what's happening, he's been attacked by a bald eagle then put in a cage in a wildlife veterinary clinic, and accosted by the enemy alien soldiers on all sides when they break into the place at night. His friends try to save him but then -strangely- a Yeerk controller named Taylor steps in- she's the one who tormented Tobias in the past. She claims to have a plan to destroy Visser Three and hundreds of Yeerks in one fell swoop- says she's part of a Yeerk rebellion against what they see as failing leadership, as an explanation. The Animorphs decide rather rashly to take this opportunity, even though they're suspicious of Taylor's willingness to work with them, and her plan seems to put them at a disadvantage- morphing into Taxxons to tunnel from a natural gas power station to the roof of the Yeerk pool cavern, where they will break in and cause an explosion. Cassie is against this plan because she realizes a lot of innocents- humans who are of course unwilling hosts of those Yeerks- will die. Some of the others have dobuts- especially Tobias- but they go along with it regardless. It's surreal. And gross. And nonsensical: the part where -because of course she wasn't really on their side- Taylor turns on them in the tunnel baffled me. How did they get out of that alive? I could not picture it as physically possible, surely they would have just all collapsed and been overwhelmed. Well, it was definitely dramatic. There's a lot of internal angst- Tobias facing his tormentor again and questioning many things he's done in the past, Jake struggling with leadership decisions, Cassie against the murder of innocents in the war, Ax and Tobias have to figure out how to manage the Taxxon morph without eating their friends who are there to keep them on task- because the alien Taxxons have an overwhelming urge to just consume everything in sight. Yet in the end, they do escape disaster happening, and the series goes on.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

A really exciting story. Tobias struggles to cope with the after affects of being tortured. I like how he is plagued by self doubts. He doesn't just shake off what had happened to him. It more real for him to have to struggle with it. ( )

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. ( )