When I was a children I read a series of books that I'd like to find so I can share them with my nephew. They were about three magical children from different worlds who traveled to other worlds in their quest to reach one world where there were three older counterparts who wanted to take over their bodies or some such thing. Two of the children were boys, one was a girl. One of the boys came from a technological world where the people were always (or almost always) plugged into virtual reality machines. The other boy seemed to be from Earth and had an absent father who I believe was in prison. And the girl was from a medieval world where she was a princess (I believe) who was trained as a fighter.
The three of them all ran away at some point and met each other (I believe they all got sucked up in portals which brought them to a different world). As they traveled between worlds their individual powers would get stronger and they gained magical stones that they could use to channel other types of magic specific to the color of the stone. I remember there being four books that you could line up next to each other and the picture on their covers would meld into one another. At the end of the fourth book it gave a little preview of the 5th book and it mentioned being about the boy from Earth and his relationship with his father somehow, but nobody could find this book for me at the time, so it may have already been out of print (this was in the mid 90s).
I also remember that the boy from Earth had the power to change the nature of objects and such. He would change 1 dollar bills into higher bills and he would change a playing card to a queen in a three-card monte game on the street, which he got in trouble for. As his power increased during his travels he was able to change an arrow (that was about to hit the girl) into a rose and he was able to change a large chunk of ground into soda as a way of stopping a hoard of attacking monsters (while on Earth he could only change things that he touched, but as he moved closer to the one world he could change things he looked at). There was also a bit about a unicorn being killed and them taking the horn which they used in their battle to defeat their older counterparts. Does any of this ring any bells for anyone?
The three of them all ran away at some point and met each other (I believe they all got sucked up in portals which brought them to a different world). As they traveled between worlds their individual powers would get stronger and they gained magical stones that they could use to channel other types of magic specific to the color of the stone. I remember there being four books that you could line up next to each other and the picture on their covers would meld into one another. At the end of the fourth book it gave a little preview of the 5th book and it mentioned being about the boy from Earth and his relationship with his father somehow, but nobody could find this book for me at the time, so it may have already been out of print (this was in the mid 90s).
I also remember that the boy from Earth had the power to change the nature of objects and such. He would change 1 dollar bills into higher bills and he would change a playing card to a queen in a three-card monte game on the street, which he got in trouble for. As his power increased during his travels he was able to change an arrow (that was about to hit the girl) into a rose and he was able to change a large chunk of ground into soda as a way of stopping a hoard of attacking monsters (while on Earth he could only change things that he touched, but as he moved closer to the one world he could change things he looked at). There was also a bit about a unicorn being killed and them taking the horn which they used in their battle to defeat their older counterparts. Does any of this ring any bells for anyone?