The Secret

Animorphs #9
by K.A. Applegate

This one wasn't as strong as the last. Cassie struggles to catch up on homework, and morphs a rat to figure out why her rat in a science project won't solve a maze. Then she and Rachel as rats scare some boys who come to torment them. Not long after the Animorphs discover that their enemies are attempting to log the entire forest behind her family's farm, in order to expose them (they know the Andalites must live away from human habitation). So they plan to sneak in and sabotage the logging operation, by morphing into termites. Even though they're terrified of being social insects, from their prior experience as ants. This doesn't go any better. The description of how submerged their sense of self becomes, and how horrifying that is, more vividly written this time. Meanwhile, Cassie fixates on a different goal: to save a litter of baby skunks- their mother is being treated at the wildlife center- and Tobias as a hawk already ate one of them. But then, he's willing to help save them after Cassie makes a point how important it is to her. In fact she gets all the Animorphs involved, which sidetracks them from more important stuff. While I liked hearing Cassie's viewpoint- she's very passionate about protecting wildlife and natural environments, and her growing doubts about their arbitrary desires to save the human race above all raised some good questions- the ending of this book wrapped up way too easily. Their battle with the aliens in the final chapters was actually rather silly. I expected a bit more conflict. Plus, I'm not sure why Cassie is shown morphing into a wolf on the cover when she was far more often in a skunk body. On a more serious note, it's becoming evident that the kids are starting to feel some real strain and trauma from constantly fighting a war it seems they are hopeless to win. Cassie, in particular, is getting very tired of lying to her parents. They are all struggling very much to keep it together...

Rating: 3/5              176 pages, 1997

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