Here's Liz Atwod in this week's Tween Tuesday:

In the past, I’ve written about my kids’ aversion to reading. Although I try to get them to read every day, I caught my tween cheating a couple weeks ago. He was supposed to be reading “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” and even though he had seen the movie, he chose the book and said he liked it. I became suspicious when he seemed to be zipping through the chapters a little too fast. When I questioned him about what he had read, it became clear he was recalling the movie, and not the book.

But last week, we were in on vacation in Orlando and spent the day in Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure theme park. As we entered the park, our path was blocked by a half dozen or so super heroes riding very loud four wheelers. We snapped a few pictures and moved on, but later that day, as we were leaving the park in a thunderstorm, my son insisted on stopping by the comic book store. There he chose four comic books and spent the rest of the evening reading.

The next day, he was asking for more. We found a comic book shop and he again spent the night reading, transfixed by the adventures of Captain America, Venom and the Black Panther.

According to the Comic Chronicles comic books sales are sinking. But the business seems to have a new patron. At $4 a comic, I’m not sure I can afford to keep up with my son’s new-found passion. But if comics get him to read, I’ll consider the money a good investment.