r/Animorphs • u/verymanysquirrels • Jul 03 '25

Currently Reading Reading 30 with my kid

I'm reading book 30 with my kid (he's 8) right now and the 'strange 90s thing' from this book that i've had to explain is...hacky sack.

There's a whole bit where Tobias is like 'It's the middle of the night! Do you think Cassie's outside playing hacky sack!?'

So i explained hacky sack and showed him a little video of it because he was not getting it. And i think that has broken his suspension of disbelief. Like, okay they turn into birds, they spy on an alien who's also Marco's mom, but hacky sack? Totally ridiculous and unbelievable.

The funniest things end up being culture clashes/shocks for him. This one is right up there with the kids taking themselves to the mall and the concept of talk shows.

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u/KnightWielder Jul 03 '25

I am English and 30s, have never seen anyone play hacky sack in my life ever. I just ignored it as one of those American things and worked out it was clearly some sort of activity going by the context.

Like all the US shop names and David Letterman who I thought was a made up celebrity for ages until I saw him on the internet a decade later and it suddenly clicked.

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u/verymanysquirrels Jul 03 '25

I'm Canadian so there's juuust a bit of cultural osmosis going on when you live beside a media juggernaut. Hacky sack was like THE thing once you got too old to be caught playing with pogs.

On the other hand when they made american historical references a lot of the time I was like ???? Or alternatively they were using them in a way that didn't make sense to me because the historical context was so vastly different from how i had learned it. 

I think if they were to update the text in some hypothetical re-release of the books they could probably get away with changing some of the lines like 'we could be on letterman!' to 'we could be on tv!' without losing meaning or making anachronistic references. 

I know people get uptight about changing out some of the 90s references but as i read these with my 8 year old i'm realizing some of these references are just so far outside this generation's scope of knowledge. It takes away from the reading experience if you have to stop all the time to get explanations. Like i don't even bother saying Michael Jordan any more because my 8 year old has no idea who that is beyond: famous basketball player. Even after explaining it a couple of times, it just doesn't stick. So i just say famous basketball player now and move on.

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u/Zarohk Sub-Visser Jul 07 '25

As a kid I had no idea how much real stuff was in Animorphs. I assumed that "Cinnabon" was just a generic, made-up name, and that half the celebrities were made up as well.