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Katherine Applegate Reflects on 'Breathtaking' Legacy of the Animorphs Books as They Turn 30: 'We Had No Idea' (Exclusive)

Applegate and her husband had the idea for the series when they were 'very young'

Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant "had no idea" that their series Animorphs would turn into a major phenomenon

The series debuted in June 1996, and its legacy lives on in the hearts of fans

A new Animorphs TV series is in development

When Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant had the idea for Animorphs, they didn't know what would happen next.

“It's just breathtaking because we had no idea,” Applegate, 69, tells PEOPLE. “My husband and I wrote these when we were very young, and we had a brand new baby, and we wrote a book every month.” The first book, The Invasion, was released in June 1996.

Applegate says at the time, books like Goosebumps and The Babysitter's Club were also coming out monthly, and, she thinks, “That's such a great way to get a kid engaged right off the bat.”

The book series followed five teenage humans — Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel and Tobias — and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, who gain the ability to transform into any animal they touch. The six of them used their abilities to battle a secret infiltration of slug-like aliens called Yeerks. Though written for children, the books grappled not just with coming-of-age themes, but also with intense topics like war, imperialism, morality and horror. The original covers famously featured actors “morphing” into their animals, often with a sometimes uncanny effect.

“We of course had no idea it would take off the way it did,” Applegate says of the series.

By the time the series had wrapped up in 2001, Animorphs had released over 50 books and created a phenomenon with kids who were happy to shove each other aside in school libraries or Scholastic book fairs to get to the next one. Animorphs was adapted into a TV series that aired on Nickelodeon from 1998 to 1999, a 1998 board game and multiple video games. Applegate has continued to work as a writer for children and young adults, with series like Everworld, Remnants, Making Out and The One and Only Ivan among her many works.

Thirty years after the first Animorphs book was released, adult fans still obsess over the series. New readers can also discover the books, thanks to new audiobook and graphic novel adaptations. The first three books in the series — The Invasion, The Visitor and The Encounter — also received new covers from Scholastic this May to mark the 30th anniversary.

Applegate, who continues to write children's books, including her latest, Wombat Waiting, says she often meets Animorphs fans at her events. “They are covered with Animorphs tattoos,” she says. “I have multiple babies named after characters, a lot of Tobiases. I had a guy drive seven hours so I could meet his dog named Tobias. It's really lovely.” They dress up as the original covers for Halloween, the Reddit page dedicated to the series remains an active place and fans have written about the series as a trans allegory.

Applegate is also excited about the news from this April that Ryan Coogler's Proximity Media is developing a new Animorphs TV series for Disney+. Sev Ohanian, who's working on the series, “is a huge Animorphs fan,” Applegate promises. “He knows more about Animorphs than I do.”

She thinks given the advancements with CGI, “There's so many more things you could do.”

“We're really hoping it works out.”

Many of those movies/shows are very good and I like them but the whole time I'm feeling like it's tragic in a way. The thought of a creature giving up its otherness to assimilate into humanity is really fuckin sad to me. Or a human getting the chance to be something else freaking out and rejecting it.

You have to love the art of words for its own sake. Love the sound of words--how you can make music of a million different rhythms and moods, how the words and sentences you choose can make a million different atmospheres. Love what you can do with words--paint an image, share an emotion, put a person into a scene that only exists in the world of imagination. Love the different ways you can use words--different points of view and tenses, different formats and styles that can each provide a different experience of the story for the reader. You have to love words as your artistic tool and delight in learning new ways to wield them and new effects that you can create with them.

In light of some of the many things happening across the world this year, I thought this Pride Month needed a special illustration.