When I was about eight or nine years old, I picked up a book called The Andalite Chronicles. I had seen similar books with teenagers turning into animals lining the library shelves. That was before the library burned down, but I always remembered those images. It was exactly the kind of thing to catch a little boy's attention. I didn't know what the stories were about, or what the pitch was, and what the implication was that they could turn into animals. Personally, I didn't even expect the books to be anything more than just fun. They looked like they should have been a pulpy adventure.

One thing I recognized was the blue alien on some of the covers, which I now know is an Andalite. When I saw The Andalite Chronicles lying on my grandfather's basement table, I asked if I could have it, and he gave it to me.

What followed was one of the most amazing adventure stories I had ever read. It still is. The main character was an enlisted soldier in the Andalite military, fighting a war against the Yeerks. The Yeerks were a species of slugs which entered into larger beings through the ears, flattened themselves across the brain, and controlled the bodies of their host. The story had a rich cast of characters, including Alloran, Arbron, Chapman, Loren, and the power-hungry Visser Three. It also included some amazing species, planets, and adventures down the classic paths of science fiction.

Don't ask me how they all clicked, but they did. Elfangor became one of my favorite protagonists ever. His relationship with Loren was something I truly felt. Visser Three's simple hunger for power and success was incredibly human and felt very real to me, making him a compelling villain. The impact this all had on Elfangor made him a very, very special character to me whose farewell I truly mourned.

However, this was all a prelude to the Animorphs series. I recommend that you first read The Andalite Chronicles as I did, and as my sisters did when they had me read it out loud to them. It sets up the series so well, and it's amazing when Elfangor's story isn't one that's understood in hindsight, because knowing it first makes everything so much richer, so much more cherished.

Simply put, Animorphs is my favorite book series and one of the most profound ongoing works of science fiction I had ever read. If you haven't read it, I implore you to do so. It is thought-provoking, sincere, and amazing in its humanity. Perhaps my nostalgia biases me, since this is in the same league as Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. Yet, my sisters loved it as much as Harry Potter, which which is saying something since it has no nostalgic value to them and they really love Harry Potter. Read these books, share them, and show them to your children, because there is nothing quite like them.

Once I picked up the first book in the main series to discover the legacy of Elfangor, I became acquainted at once with Jake. The series started with him and it ended with him. Yet, he didn't dominate the narrative. Depending on your point of view and who you relate with the most, the entire series can be interpreted through the lens of any one of the characters, who each had something significant going on in their lives.

My favorite was Tobias. He was alone and unwanted. Yet he was incredibly special. He was a boy whose father was the most amazing person and he never knew it. Sometimes I wanted to call him the Chosen One, because even though he didn't have some grand destiny I knew what his secret backstory was. What mattered, however, was that in spite of how amazing his parents were, he could never appreciate it. He never had that life. He got tossed around a lot between relatives who never wanted him. This is the basis for many sympathetic main characters, but I fell in love with this one in particular. It was done so well.

See, Tobias suffered from depression. He darkly hid his thoughts, and no matter what the world never quite connected with him, and he never really belonged to it anyway. He had a void in his life that could never really be filled. He wasn't necessarily an inhospitable personality, since he could get along with others, but there was definitely something about him that people could respect. The other Animorphs understood that he was different. It didn't hurt that he was stuck in the body of a red-tailed hawk.

Symbolically, that explains so much. He's a member of no one's world. He doesn't even quite have a world for himself. He's just out there, and his only true home is the landscape of nature itself. His inhumanity is consummated in his transformation, but somehow he's more in touch with himself for it. He spoke more to my humanity than any of the other characters. Shortly before I had first picked up the first book, my parents separated. No on ever understood how I felt save for some kids I met at a shelter, who had the most profound impact on me that any human being had ever had. Those stories are too intimate for me to ever share in full except with my mother and my future wife, but I don't live in that world anymore. That world got ripped from me, and once again I found myself not belonging to it. I wasn't even trapped between two worlds, because nothing was pulling at me. I just felt trapped. The world I fled to wasn't even an escape, but some place where I found recluse, where at least I didn't feel the pain of people who didn't understand. How could they, when I often hardly even felt human? It still hurts me, but then I read the story of Tobias. A.K. Applegate got it. Through Tobias, she knew exactly where I was.

Life went on, albeit in an empty way. It didn't really have any reward, but there were apparently things worth doing. Namely, saving the world, since the Yeerks. So many people say that it feels good to do good, but I think that the reaction of Tobias and the rest of the Animorphs disprove that little anecdote. Saving the world didn't feel great. For Tobias in particular, who found it easier not to feel, it was just life. It didn't even feel like an obligation, because it was simply life.

With that in mind, Tobias wasn't the manliest character in the Animorphs. He was the most significant to me in a very deep level, and still is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. Yet, there were certain people in his life who I had to respect. There was a leader in the group. He had been a person who had the qualities of leadership from the start, before the war changed him. He had been the person who knew each of the other Animorphs from the start. His name was Jake. He was my second favorite character, and he became one of the greatest inspirations for me, even when I was in third grade.

See, Jake truly was a leader. He has only just entered high school when he first had the responsibility of saving the world fall on his lap. He wasn't some sort of chosen one, but he was Earth's last hope nevertheless. That was a huge responsibility. Most people go through a hero's journey before they rise up to the challenge of filling those shoes. Jake never quite hesitated. All he really needed was confirmation that the situation really was as dire as he had been told.

The main confirmation he got was in his brother, Tom, who was controlled by a Yeerk. And then he saw Visser Three again. That was all he needed to get straight to the chase and start fighting for the liberation of all mankind as a shape-shifting guerrilla warrior. He wasn't Batman or Indiana Jones or any kind of guy who could go in and be the big hero, either. He had to constantly practice self-preservation skills so he could lose battles in order to win wars.

In short, he had to make some huge decisions, and make them fast. He had to grow up in an instant, and he pulled it off. At age thirteen or fourteen, Jake became one of the manliest men in all of literature.

He was the type of person who could lead four other teens in a rebellion against an invisible enemy and keep a secret that would drive most people insane. He could even command the respect of Tobias. The amazing thing about Jake was that Tobias had a distinct sense of right and wrong, but he followed Jake's decisions anyway without much argument. Jake was just respectable enough, and his judgment was often sound enough. It was rarely perfect, since there was always the question of whether or not they did the right thing and many people had doubts, but Jake was the person who took everyone's ethical concerns and strategies and figured out what the final say was. So a person like Tobias might not have always respected Jake's decisions, but he always respected Jake. He was the only person who had the strength to live with them.

Being a leader doesn't require that you always be right. What it required for Jake was a lot of sacrifice. He taught me something long before I ever heard Spock put the philosophy in words: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Jake had to make this decision all the time, and yet had to balance these harsh militaristic strategies to, on occasion, risk himself for just one person. He had to put his own concerns behind him from day one. He had to make impossible decisions, when he had to decide to let a loved one die. He had to live with the fact that one day, in spite of all his hopes, he would probably have to kill his own brother.

Doing the right thing doesn't always look pretty. It certainly doesn't always feel good. Sometimes he felt evil and no better than the enemy for killing. It was an impossible decision to make. It was, likewise, an equally impossible decision to spare his enemies when he and his friends thought that they were crossing a line. Sometimes he felt terrible for being too harsh, other times for being too merciful.

What Jake's leadership also required was a strong relationship with his team. He never took charge, but rather he was given charge. Why? Because when they needed a butcher, he was the butcher. When they needed a saint, he was their saint. The weight of their decisions was off their shoulders. Whether they were ultimately right or wrong, who knew? That was for Jake to contemplate. The burden of the responsibility was on his shoulders. No one else wanted it, and no one else could have lived with all his doubts. Each of the Animorphs had their own point of view and could rarely agree on everything, but they always knew that everyone had a strong point. Cassie knew that Rachel had a point, and Marco often knew that Ax had a point. Jake was the mediator. If there was any guilt in their actions as a team, it rested on his shoulders. The rest of the Animorphs could rest knowing that while it was their decision to follow his lead, his decisions weren't their decisions.

By the end, Jake was a changed person. He had sacrificed much of his humanity. Some of the other Animorphs could cope with the weight of the war against the Yeerk invasion, such as the humorous Marco and the benevolent Cassie, but Jake was never the same. In some ways, he began looking a lot like Tobias. He was silent, and no one could quite connect with them. He had sacrificed everything and hollowed himself out to do what he had to do. Adding to the exhaustion was that he had to force himself every day to act as if everything was normal and to live a normal life. I think there was a part where he had to finally cave in.

Because the blood on his hands wasn't pretty. The things he had witnessed were even worse. Yet he made the decision every day to actively chase after these things. He made the decision to save the world, do what he could, and question whether or not he made the best decisions later. Sometimes that even meant making sure that he would live while other innocent people perished so that he could live to save others. Sometimes that meant flat out ignoring the safety of loved ones when he had to choose between them and the world. That was the hardest of them all, because they were the people who kept him going. "If he defeated the Yeerks, freed humanity, rescued Earth, that was good. But that was just a bonus. His main goal was much simpler. To save his family. That goal was what had given him strength. That goal was what had kept him sane. Allowed him to retain a center of calm focus amid the awful chaos." How was it even possible for him to set his family aside when they were the reason he fought for humanity in the first place?

These were big thoughts, tremendous for a third grade student. Yet, it introduced me very early on to the complex world of ethics. Sometimes this world has room for idealism. Other times it requires pragmatism. Other times, who knows? Should he have listened to Marco's philosophy of the ends justifying the means, of taking the straightest path from point A to point B? Should he approach his problems as aggressively as possible with a "Let's do it" attitude, like his cousin Rachel? Should he have heeded the simple compassion and humanity of Cassie, who kept her morals close to her heart for the whole series? Should he simply do his duty and commit himself as a soldier to victory, as Ax did? Should he have been more loyal to the people he was trying to lead, as Tobias was to him?

What I know was that it wasn't Jake's concern to be a good person, although he certainly was. In order to be that, however, he only worried about being the person he needed to be. He got me to think long and hard about these things, and about some of life's toughest questions. The rest of his team did, too, but he was the one I looked up to. I was Tobias and I am still completely fine with being that person, but Jake was the person I aspired to be a little more like, because he's the man I could never be. He led me as a little boy and he's leading me still.