We've all had our obsessions when we were younger, and saved up all our allowance money for weeks to buy the newest thing that would add to our collection. For me it was Beanie Babies (I had a ridiculous amount .... and yes, I still have some), I had a single Tamagatchi (before you could buy 12 for $1), boxes and boxes of Crayola crayons, a ton of Sega games, and probably my most prized book collection ever.

I used to get a $1 a week as a kid, before I started doing more chores around the house to up my allowance to $5 a week, and saved up for a month to buy the newest book in my collection series.

There was this author named K.A. Applegate and in rivalry to the Goosebumps series, which I also did read but didn't collect as avidly, she wrote this series call Animorphs.

It was about these 5 kids who obtain the ability to morph into any animal they touch; they name themselves "Animorphs", the name meaning "animal morphers". Using their ability, they battle a secret alien infiltration of Earth. The characters grow up throughout the series, struggling to cope with the horrors of war, the acts which they commit, and the compromises and retreats they must make to win the war (and sometimes, even just to survive).

Okay, I know. I know what you're thinking. But I swear, these were the coolest books on the face of the earth for all 5 years they were around. I started collecting them when I was 8 and I have the complete series for a total of 64 books, which now belong to my 15 year old brother.

The book series no longer continues, but they're still around. Now you can buy them for about $.01 on Amazon, but they were $4 when they first came out and a month of saving was completely worth it in order to have another one.

The covers were also super cool because each one featured the transformation of one of the characters into the animal that they used the most in the book, and no two covers were ever the same.

Below is the very first cover of the series, with the illustration from inside beside it. The cover was always die-cut for the animal's face to show through, and the illustration was always something that happened within the book.

Nothing beats childhood toys.

Unless, of course it's tees from
Draw.