This summer, I paid my 12-year-old daughter US$100 (S$130) to read a book. As far as mum manoeuvres go, it was definitely last ditch, and the size of the payout was certainly excessive. I can’t say I am proud – but I am extremely satisfied. Because the plan worked. It worked so well, I’d suggest other parents of reluctant readers open their wallets and bribe their kids to read, too.

My daughter is a whip-smart kid, definitely smarter than I was at 12. But until I resorted to bribery, she’d never read an entire chapter of a book for pleasure. She’d read books for school, but getting her to do that was like pulling teeth, and on her own she’d read a few graphic novels and listened to the audiobooks of the Harry Potter series.