Remember When Scholastic Was Awesome?

Those were the days! Yep, another random obscure body-swap pic, this one from the "Help! I'm Trapped..." series. Specifically, "Help! I'm Trapped In An Alien's Body" which is honestly the best of the books in my opinion. The series revolved around Jake Sherman (and occasionally some of his friends) swapping bodes with all kinds of things. Dogs, vampires, super models, the principal, a Hulk Hogan ripoff, etc. As the title of this book suggests, Jake swaps bodies with an alien. This book was my favorite due to how the alien body was presented, as being this athletic and stout body with insanely long arms. There's a part where he uses his stretchy alien arms to win a soccer match, which I find awesome.

And if you're wondering, no the alien in the book does not resemble the one on the cover. I think the artist was told "Just draw a generic alien with a kid's face on it" and he promptly did so. Still, it's a pretty nifty cover, and manages to be just as memorable as the Animorphs covers. While this series most likely did not get me into swaps, it did show my what COULD be done with them. Because body-swapping in this series was more than just a bland "episode-of-the-week" gimmick. Sure, Jake and friends still learned lessons, but the descriptions of these bodies were pretty dang good. When I started writing TFs and Swaps, my goal was to be as descriptive as Todd Strasser is in this series.

It sucks that this series is as obscure as it is. It never really took off like Animorphs or Goosebumps, and as a result ended up forgotten. I'd see these in my library all the time and would rarely see people walk without these books in tow. Heck, I don't even think this series ever received a reprint! If I ever get the money or resources, I'd totally love to buy the copyright to this series from Scholastic, just so I can reprint the old stuff and make new books in the series myself. It's a crazy dream, but hey. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll pull it off. But yeah, this pic is not owned by me. Both "Help! I'm Trapped..." and any characters and books within are the copyright of Scholastic (FOR NOW!)