The Emerald Atlas / John Stephens / 417 pages / Frist Book in a Series

This is the first book in a trilogy called the Books of Beginnings.  It opens "on a snowy Christmas Eve when three toddlers are taken from their parents and placed in an orphanage in Boston.  Ten years and twelve orphanages later, fourteen year old Kate (Who promised her mother to keep her younger siblings safe that fateful night.), twelve year old Michael, and eleven year old Emma find themselves in the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible orphans."  They have perhaps one more chance at a real home when the are shipped off the the village of Cambridge Falls, to the estate of the mysterious Dr. Stanislaus Pym.  Kate, Michael, and Emma are its only residents.  While exploring their new home, they discover an ancient green book.  When a picture is places within its pages the kids are transported to the past where they find the missing children of Cambridge Falls and the Countess who is determined to possess all three Books and to control the world.  Horn Book says that "Stephens creates an American version of a complex fantastical world akin to the Harry Potter or Narnia books; an imaginative and enjoyable read."  I agree!  I also could not help but compare it a Series of Unfortunate Events.