Delete Parent - Keep Children?

Don't know how it happened (too many editors?), but my site has some duplicate books, some of which share the same children. The desired parent syntax is (URL); the duplicate parent syntax is (URL)-0. Can I safely delete a duplicate parent and not lose the children that are common with the other duplicate book I want to keep? (...Because when you select Delete, you are warned this action will delete all children books. Or does that just mean the link from the deleted book to the child books will be broken?)