Applegate Katherine Alice. The Animorphs 20. The Discovery

After failing miserably to pick up a girl at his locker, Marco is stymied to find a boy carrying the morphing cube, known as the Escafil Device. Marco introduces himself to the new boy, David, and lamely tries to buy the Box off him, but David ignores him. Marco tells Jake about it, and both agree that the situation needs to be taken care of immediately. But that's not the only surprise in store for them. Erek the Chee tells them that a group of G8 leaders (including those from Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, and the U.S.) are gathering at the Marriott Hotel resort on the city coast to discuss the problems in the Middle East. Erek also tells them that the Yeerks are plotting to infest each leader, and soon the most powerful nations in the world would be under Yeerk influence. The biggest problem is that one of these heads of state is already a Controller. Now the Animorphs need two plans: one to retrieve the Blue Box, and another to stop the Yeerks from taking over the world.Marco, Tobias and Rachel try to raid David's house in bird of prey morphs. Unfortunately, it fails miserably. Tobias is knocked unconscious, Marco is attacked by David's cat, and Rachel gets shot at by David and his BB gun. The next day at school, David tells Marco his seemingly ridiculous story about trained robber birds, and discusses his plan to sell the Blue Box online. Marco immediately skips the rest of the school day in order to stop the automatic E-mail David has set up from going out.Animorphs is an English language science fiction series of young adult books written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. It is told in first person, with all 6 main characters taking turns narrating the books through their own perspectives. Horror, war, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, freedom, and growing up are the core motifs of the series.The story revolves around five humans, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (nicknamed Ax), who obtain the ability to morph into any animal they touch. Naming themselves "Animorphs" (a portmanteau of "animal morphers") they use their ability to battle a secret alien infiltration of Earth by a race called the Yeerks. The Yeerks are a parasitic race of aliens resembling large slugs that take humans as a host by entering and merging with their brain through the ear canal. The Animorphs fight as a guerilla force against the Yeerks, led by Visser Three, and their program to take over the human race. Morphing into animals allows them to battle the various armies of aliens that the Yeerks use, but it also protects their identities. As far as the Yeerks know, only Andalites like Ax have the ability to morph, and if they knew that the Animorphs were mostly human they would be able to easily find out who they are. Protecting their identities becomes more and more difficult as the series goes on because though someone with the ability to morph can change into any animal that they touch, they can only stay in a morph for two hours or they will permanently become that animal. Throughout the series, we see how the war affects the characters in different ways, mentally and physically.