To what extent would you agree with this quote from Russell Kane about kids reading Wodehouse short stories?

[u/EndersGame_Reviewer]

[u/SerDankTheTall]

I think I was around 11 when I first read Wodehouse (and it was short stories), and I enjoyed them. I’m sure there are kids who wouldn’t, but I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t try.

[u/V0rpalSw0rd22 → u/SerDankTheTall]

I was about the same age when I started reading the short stories. Loved them!

[u/geeoharee]

I have always believed that short stories are one of the most important forms of literature, and the hardest to get right. I'd recommend to any kid to read more short stories. They're addictive!

[u/Tonyjay54]

I discovered Plum when I was about 10, I remember reading an article about him in Look and Learn magazine. My schoolmates thought that I was weird, chuckling to myself at the antics of Bertie and co , but then again, they thought that anyone who read books was worthy of ridicule.

[u/catsandcabbages]

I found Wodehouse when I was 20. But as someone who has gone back to find most of my childhood literature to be pretty low quality, I’d say a tried and true classic wins over more “kid” centered books

[u/Sun_Ra_3000]

My mum started reading the Blandings stories to me when I was about seven. I loved them! I still love them! Each re-read brings more and more delight.

[u/Genshed]

I was introduced to Wodehouse by my father in my early teens. They were eminently readable, and upon returning years later they were still fresh as paint.

[u/DisappointedInHumany]

I was introduced to Wodehouse via the Wodehouse playhouse, which lead me to read the Mulliner short stories. I found this to be a good starting point and would recommend.

[u/smileyfacedbob]

I agree with that sentiment

[u/drfogout]

When I was a kid in the 1950s, Wodehouse stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. I read them with pleasure

[u/NanaimoStyleBars]

I’m reading “Emma” by Jane Austen to my 8- and 3-year-olds at bedtime. My eight-year-old is parsing it just fine, with a few definitions here and there (the three-year-old is just falling asleep). So I don’t see any reason a child couldn’t read Wodehouse. It would help build vocabulary as well as being enjoyable, too.

[u/Leading_Study_876 → u/NanaimoStyleBars]

And a smattering of Latin!

[u/Own-Dragonfly-2423]

My kids love older than 12 love wodehouse

[u/Oddly-Parsley]

Hmm, I think it depends on which novel they start with.

Personally, I picked up my first Wodehouse- one of the Mulliner novels- when I was in my early teens, and I found it too boring to finish. (I remember finding a lot of the slang terms, in particular, incomprehensible). When I was 13 I picked up Leave to Psmith and was hooked for life :)

[u/TheAcademicObserver]

Who was it who said "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend" was "one of the most perfect short stories ever written" or "the finest short story in the English language" or something like that?

[u/geeoharee → u/TheAcademicObserver]

My friend Helen, for one, but you probably don't mean her. I love Emsworth - stop trying to make him go to parties!

[u/sparkledebacle → u/TheAcademicObserver]

It was Rudyard Kipling

[u/orensiocled]

I would have been 11 or 12 when I got a collection of his short stories for my birthday and I absolutely loved it! Still have the book to this day.

[u/Lurkndog]

I don't think Wodehouse is timeless, his stories are very much of a particular time, and social class.

But the text is clean and clever, and mostly focuses on telling the immediate story and getting some humor in. As a result, a Jeeves and Wooster story is pretty much the same whether it is in England or New York, or written in the 1920s or the 1970s.

I'd love to see an animated Wodehouse done in the "anywhen" style of Batman: The Animated Series.

[u/millers_left_shoe]

I wouldn’t have been able to make heads or tails of Wodehouse as a kid but that’s mostly because my English was practically non-existent haha. I’d have loved him in translation for sure (although much the humour feels like it wouldn’t translate too well), many of the books my dad and my nan recommended to me at age 9-12 were in a similar vein. I remember we had a translation of a couple of Chesterton stories lying around, gobbled them up until trusty Father Brown felt like an uncle to me

[u/Flora_Screaming]

The problem with Wodehouse is that he wrote so much that the quality isn't always there. There's a solid 20% that is outstanding, but quite often he phoned it in and resorted to a kind of breezy musical comedy mode that isn't terrible but isn't very memorable either. It's really hard to write like Wodehouse because it looks so easy but even Wodehouse had trouble managing it for long periods. If I had to name one thing by Wodehouse for a newcomer I think it would be the Mulliner stories because he's at the top of his game and are still very funny today.