Many of you with elementary school-age kids are familiar with the Book It! program, whereby kids are rewarded for reading. If they read 20, 25 or sometimes every day in the month, they get some free goodie. In my parts, you get a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut.

My older son did the book thing once and got his coupon. Then we never used it. Now he reads 2-3 books a day. He can close down a Hardy Boys book in less than an hour. I've tried to convince him that he might be missing some of the ambiance and nuance, but then he responds with an analysis of the entire Hardy Boys oeuvre ("original 57" versus the new books, etc.) that tells me he's not missing a thing. Anyway, the pizza didn't much enter the picture. He figured out how much fun reading is, and now he does it all the time.

Our younger son would like to participate, but he doesn't take the time to fill out his Book It! sheet. So he has yet to get even one coupon. He's in Kindergarten, and he doesn't like to admit how much he can read. Perhaps he's afraid that his mom and I won't read to him any more. But he's reading fine. What's more, he's writing lengthy, interesting sentences--something his bookworm older brother has never done.

The Book It! program has always troubled me. Bribing kids to do things has an unseemly feel to it. But we did use M&Ms and other candy to potty train, and that worked like a charm. So could bribing kids with pizza work as well?

I don't think so. Bribery works only as immediate gratification. Spies dead drop their info and expect payment pronto. No waiting around for a month or longer. You pee in the potty, and you get an M&M. Quid. Pro. Quo. Not read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read pizza.

Or, to be perfectly accurate, read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read pizza coupon. The pizza cannot be taken for granted. As my older son can attest, there's no guarantee your parents will take you to Pizza Hut.

I have learned one thing through this whole Book It examination, however. Pizza is a lot cheaper than it used to be. I remember when personal pan pizzas first arrived back in the 1980s. They cost $4.99 apiece for cheese, extra for toppings. These days, personal pan pizzas start at $3.99. If you were to index that to inflation, I think you'd find that pizza has had a deflationary impact on our economy.

Still, I think the more important lesson is that if you're gonna use bribery, there has to be that immediate hook to it. Some sizzle to keep the bribee in line. This is something for the Obama administration to keep in mind as it ponders how to handle Hosni Mubarak's impending departure from Egypt. As distasteful as it might seem, a modest bribe is a small price to pay for a peaceful transfer of power. A nice house, a small pension, something. The cost of such a bribe, both ethically and practically, is dwarfed by the largess we've heaped on that corrupt regime over the last thirty years. In the lay-off business, companies pay some employees a "stay bonus" to serve out their time and keep the company afloat. We could pay Mubarak a "quit bonus" instead. It would be much cheaper in the long haul.

Just make sure the cash is up front--but not until Mubarak actually leaves Egypt. After all, Mubarak is the kind of guy who could game the Book It! program into his own personal Pizza Hut franchise.

Jon Worley's favorite Dictator is Ross "The Boss" Friedman.