Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American children's books

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete‎. If anyone is interested in working on this page in Draft space, contact me or WP:REFUND. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of American children's books[edit]

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This list is a mere copy of the related category at the time of its creation in 2015 without the subcategories (including American children's novels and other significant omissions), plus some random books since added. No one since my original suggestion in 2015 has made any attempt to improve the page and it has very few page views. Robina Fox (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2023 July 22. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 15:55, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Literature, Lists, and United States of America. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 16:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete hopelessly broad list. Dronebogus (talk) 16:06, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep: This is not an inappropriate topic for a list. It also doesn't have to be "hopelessly broad". It's already limited to a specific country, as WP:SALAT suggests in cases of large-scope list topics, and it could easily be divided into sections in accordance with genre, year of publication, or some other criterion. Since this list contains only notable entries, I don't think WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies. So far, no policy-based argument has been made to show that this topic is intrinsically inappropriate for a standalone list. The fact that the list is currently out of date is not really a good reason for deletion either. The next step, then, is to establish standalone list notability as per WP:LISTN. So, have American children's books been discussed as a group by reliable sources? In short, yes. I quickly found an academic article on it, as well as this article. Leonard S. Marcus, who probaby qualifies as a subject-matter expert, wrote Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature. Multicultural and Ethnic Children's Literature in the United States by Donna Gilton is another book on the topic from a subject-matter expert. There is also this article, though I'm not sure of the reliability of that publication. Encyclopedia Britannica has this, but that's a tertiary source; still, it can contribute to the understanding that this is a notable topic and appropriate for a list. This BBC coverage is also an appropriate source for establishing notability. I'm sure more could be found, but the point is made: the topic "American children's books/literature" has received significant coverage as a group from reliable sources, so the list fulfills the relevant notability requirements. I'm not sure, then, what remains as a reason for deletion. The list topic is 1. generally appropriate for Wikipedia and 2. appropriately limited in scope and through selection criteria and 3. notable. Actualcpscm (talk) 17:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In principle this is a fine subject for a list, but as it stands it is hopelessly inadequate and misleading. It gives no information not given in the category: no date, no author, no genre, no setting. It doesn't include, to take a few books at random, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Cat in the Hat, The Giver, The Lightning Thief, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Secret of the Old Clock, Antiracist Baby. If deletion is not the answer, it should be gutted and started over as a more selective list with actual information on each book and a link to the category in the lead. As it is, it is actually anti-encyclopedic. Robina Fox (talk) 20:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that would fulfill the purpose of a list; a list with a higher threshold of entry than notability and with extensive information on each entry would probably be better placed in Children's_literature#United_States, or in a standalone article on that topic, which has been suggested. I don't think that information like author, genre, setting, etc. is appropriate for a list with only notable entries (i.e. easily accessible in-depth information on each entry), but that is better debated on the talk page of the list. I agree that this isn't a particularly helpful list in its current state, but it would be much better to keep it around and improve it. To that end, I wouldn't oppose draftification in principle, but that's really only necessary if the current version of the list is so bad as to be positively damaging to readers' understanding; is that what you mean by anti-encyclopedic? Actualcpscm (talk) 20:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Imagine if someone tried to write an article on American children's literature using the current list as a starting point. An encyclopedia should provide basic significant information. On notability, I'll just say that if your standard is the existence of an article, what function does a list serve that a category does not? I love categories myself – I've made lots of them – but I expect more of a list. Well, I'm not sure this is contributing to the deletion discussion, so I'll leave it there. Robina Fox (talk) 20:53, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your judgement is more informed than mine on that; draftify for improvement would be an acceptable outcome imo, but it‘s a workable list topic in principle. Actualcpscm (talk) 21:06, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Category:American children's books exist. Should have it done like all the other lists at Category:Lists of children's books, with columns for useful information. Dream Focus 11:00, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete This is absolutely hopelessly broad. The source analysis above misses the point – none of those would be used as sources for this and no one is suggesting the concept of children's literature as a whole is not notable, so if you want to write an article about American children's literature as suggested above be my guest. But that's no reason to have a bullet-pointed list that could have several thousands of items. Category:American children's books has over 5,000 books in its subcategories, and just duplicating (just a small fraction of) that in this way is not the way to go. Existence of a category does not inherently mean an identical list is acceptable, and with a lack of selection criteria or other analysis, this is simply too indiscriminate. What's even more ridiculous is that List of children's books made into feature films has more books than this page! This is just too broad to be workable. The other items in Category:Lists of children's books have much narrower scopes. Reywas92^Talk 14:03, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. No reason to duplicate the category with a manually updated list; that's a colossal waste of time. Fix the category and its subcategories, and delete this page. Cielquiparle (talk) 14:16, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify for rescoping and improvement; I still think the topic is principally fine, but I see the issues with scope and the state of the article probably warrant removal from the article namespace. I have been convinced! Actualcpscm (talk) 15:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Usually draftification is reserved for relatively new articles and lists. This list has existed since 2015. But if you're really interested in working on fixing the list, maybe you should clearly state that. Cielquiparle (talk) 13:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Weak refocus: If we were to list all the titles that qualify, we'd be here all century! There's a reason for the already existing Category:American children's books--or better yet, the "Juvenile" sections at Open Library and WorldCat. However, this might leave the door open for a similarly titled container overview, "Lists of American children's books"--but even that would take a lot more maintenance and commitment. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 12:18, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete If nothing else, this is NOT a list of American Children's Books, but of ACB that have Wikipedia articles. Next, what makes a book "American"? Published in the US? - no, that would include Alice in Wonderland which is republished in the US. Author is American? (Do we always know?) What if author is non-US but illustrator is, or vice-versa? This is a list that cannot be defined usefully and that is truly unlikely to be maintained. This kind of categorization is exactly what the categories are for. I just wish that the categories were publicized more. Lamona (talk) 02:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alice in Wonderland is in category:British children's novels. If the writer is American, then their books are American books. If British then they are British books. Dream Focus 09:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.