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Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo is a short, silly quest for 10 year olds that begins with Percy hanging off a Times Square billboard without his trousers.
He tells you that on the very first page, then goes back to explain. You can blame Apollo, apparently.
It's his best friend Grover's birthday. Grover is a satyr, so Percy has brought him aluminium cans (his favourite snack). The party in the park is going nicely until the sun gets too bright and Apollo appears in a cloud of steam and gold sunglasses.
The god of music has a big concert on Mount Olympus tonight. His golden backup singers are meant to be a four-piece, and one of them has run off to the Theatre District to be discovered. When she sings, everyone listening feels whatever the song tells them to. One sad note and half of Times Square is on its knees sobbing.
So Percy and Grover have until sunset to catch her. They've got some wax for their ears and Apollo's own lyre (with a firm warning that if they scratch it, he'll incinerate them).
If your reader has met Percy before, all the good stuff is here. The jokes at his own expense. The gods who treat heroes like errand boys. Grover panicking and summoning a plate of enchiladas instead of a cage. If they haven't met him yet, this is a very easy way in, and short enough to finish in one go.
Even the fight scenes are funny. A brick wall pops up in the wrong place and Percy runs straight into it. His jeans end up waving from a billboard like a flag. The trick they finally use on the singer is so daft that it works.
There is proper peril, with Percy dangling hundreds of feet up while his grip slips. Nobody is badly hurt though, and the tone stays cheeky from start to finish. Want to know what underwear a demigod wears? Percy tells you anyway.
If this gets them hooked, go back to where Percy's story starts with The Lightning Thief. He's twelve, he's on a school trip to a museum, and he's pretty sure his maths teacher isn't human.
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