As a former children's book lead, I have a suggestion for a book Charlie might like. He liked Percy Jackson, right? Well, first, there are four more books in that series, so you could try to get him to continue it if he liked the first one.
But there's a really wonderful, lesser-known book (even though it's a Newbery Honor Book) called The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis-McGraw. It's about a 12-year-old boy in ancient Egypt, who works at a goldsmith and wants to be an apprentice. He catches his cousin, who is his guardian, for lack of a better description, stealing gold from the goldsmith. His cousin beats him, so it's not a sunshiny book, but he then finds out his cousin is robbing graves and figures out a way to catch him. I loved it when I was a little younger than Charlie.
no subject
But there's a really wonderful, lesser-known book (even though it's a Newbery Honor Book) called The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis-McGraw. It's about a 12-year-old boy in ancient Egypt, who works at a goldsmith and wants to be an apprentice. He catches his cousin, who is his guardian, for lack of a better description, stealing gold from the goldsmith. His cousin beats him, so it's not a sunshiny book, but he then finds out his cousin is robbing graves and figures out a way to catch him. I loved it when I was a little younger than Charlie.