By Rick Riordan
The one that turns a twelve-year-old who can't sit still in class into the son of a Greek god, and hands your child a whole summer of a book.
Percy Jackson has been kicked out of every school he's ever attended. He can't focus, he can't sit still, and words swim on the page. Then a substitute teacher turns into a winged monster and tries to kill him, and Percy learns the truth: he's a demigod, the son of Poseidon, and his ADHD and dyslexia are the leftovers of a brain wired for battle and ancient Greek. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, everyone thinks Percy took it, and he has ten days to cross America, find the real thief, and stop the gods from going to war. He goes with Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and Grover, a satyr who is secretly his protector.
This is the gift that buys you a year of bedtimes. A strong nine- or ten-year-old falls in, and there are four more books waiting, plus a shelf of spin-off series after that. What makes it land beyond the monster fights is that Percy's ADHD and dyslexia, the things that made him feel broken at school, turn out to be his superpowers. A child who has ever been the one who can't sit still will feel that in their chest. The jokes are funny, the pace never lets up, and it sneaks a whole education in Greek mythology past them while they think they're just having fun.