Two-thirds of my degrees are in English, I spent several years teaching English, and I now run a school library. In other words, I've read a lot of American literature. I've also written about a lot of American literature. I have many opinions on American literature and more than the usual amount of education and experience to back them up.

The World Book entry on "American literature" was both better and worse than I expected.

Better: It acknowledges the overlap between "literary movements" - noting that many authors can be classified as belonging to multiple "movements" simultaneously and that some "movements" (notably Realism and Modernism) tend to ebb and flow rather than stick to one specific time period. This is more acknowledgement of the way literary movements actually work than I heard in my entire four years of undergrad.

Worse: The choices of authors to mention or not-mention is baffling at times. It is especially weird to have two degrees in the subject and "professor of English" on my CV, yet find that the World Book Encyclopedia doesn't mention a few authors I consider canonical and does mention two or three I've actually never heard of before. (To be fair, they were one poet and two playwrights, and very few American literature programs actually pay much attention to playwrights.

Worst, but understandable if not exactly forgivable: In its effort to stay "current," World Book lists several authors/poets/playwrights who have made the news in the past ten years or so. The problem is that World Book lists them as if they have the same kind of staying power as, say, Edgar Allan Poe.

They do not - or rather, we cannot possibly know if they will or not. Sure, we're all digging Hamilton now, but is it going to be read in 200 years? Will anyone in the far future remember that Joyce Carol Oates even existed? Please don't mislead the children into thinking we can predict who will be a "classic" author in advance, World Book!