They say no good deed goes unpunished. I suppose if you look at this as a pessimist, my punishment meant me spending hours being unproductive with my own work. Um, I’m not a pessimist. But let me start at the beginning.

Pudd’nhead Books here in St. Louis put out a call for help when it came time for them to move across the street. This store was responsible for allowing me to have lunch with the likes of Jennifer Donnelly, David Wiesner, Michael Buckley and Jon Scieszka. Even if they hadn’t, I’m a volunteer sucker. I went in one morning to help box up the children’s section. There I saw about a dozen copies of The Emerald Atlas.

 I was immediately struck by its cover. Surrounding the beautiful, lush landscape that included three kid jumping rocks to cross a raging river was a border of an old-time map. Together, total intrigue.

“Is this any good?” I asked Melissa.

She didn’t hesitate. “Really great.”

And after about an hour of packing many, many covers, I walked out of the store with that one.

As is my style, I let it sit on my bookshelf for a couple months. Then one day, I was running out the door to some appointment or another and I needed to grab some reading material. My hands touched The Emerald Atlas and I got lost for hours in the first adventure in the series.

The first scene is particularly haunting. Kate, the oldest of her gnome-expert brother Michael and her defiant, feisty, pick-a-fight sister Emma, is given a locket by her mother on Christmas. Just as we see her loving her life, people come barging into their house and as the three kids get spirited away by a man in a tweed coat, her mom makes Kate promise that she’ll keep her brother and sister safe. Later, her mother says to her father, “I told Kate we’d all be together again. I was lying.”

The kids, we find quickly, move through a series of orphanages until they land at a last-chance place in Cambridge Falls, a city that no one has heard of and in a building without any orphans except them. As they explore the building, they happen upon a book that allows them to time travel. When they encounter a beautiful witch about to drown a kid in the river, their dangerous, mysterious adventure begins. It's one that could change the course of history for the people of Cambridge Falls and for themselves as well. Book #2, hurry!

As always, this review exists in conjunction with Barrie Summy’s book review club, the first Wednesday of each month. Thanks again, Barrie!