Urban fantasy-ish YA series (found!)

[buttonsbeadslace]

 This is a series of YA books (I think three books, but maybe more?) set in a more or less normal "present day" world, where a small minority of children are able to shapeshift into animals. At some point in their teens (on a birthday, I think, but I don't remember at what age) they lose the ability and get stuck in whatever form they're in at that moment. Some of them choose to become animals permanently. There's a lot of angst.

The plot of one of the later books revolves around some of the shapeshifters discovering that they can take the forms of supernatural creatures, too-- unicorns, phoenixes, vampires. But these creatures aren't really meant to exist and getting stuck permanently in a supernatural form messes with the balance of the world somehow. I think what happens is that someone takes an "evil" form permanently (a vampire, I think), and that forces someone else to stay in a "good" form permanently to balance it out? But I don't remember for sure which happened first.

I read these in the mid 2000s in the US.

Comments

[explorewithtwine.wordpress.com]

I'm pretty sure your book is also not the Golden Compass Series by Philip Pullman. Shapechanging souls that solidify in shape around puberty, yes, but no vampires or unicorns or phoenixes.

[buttonsbeadslace]

You're right, it's not. :) I guess I might as well add that it's also not any of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' books (she has both shapeshifters and vampires, but I don't think those continuities overlap?). Nor is it Diane Duane's Young Wizards, there's some shapeshifting in there.