Book reader community.
The publisher DK had a few different series of nonfiction books. I remember some with these really cool detailed cross sections of different things, and another series that was just full of cool photos and trivia. Seems like they had a ton of different books but I can’t remember the specific titles!
Edit: did some googling and at least one of the series was the DK Eyewitness books. They still look like they would be fun to read!
I used to love the Eyewitness books as a kid.
Those covers with the white backgrounds are very inviting.
The white background cover versions are the ones I used to constantly checkout from my school library. It's like mainlining nostalgia for me.
Fouché by Stephan Zweig!!
My teacher gave me that one in middle school and I treasured it!
It's so good for younger audiences. Even tho Fouché is a fucking asshole most of the time. But it was perfect for French revolution history
The Tell Me Why books by Arkady Leokum - Goodreads link Those probably had more to do with shaping me than anything else I've read.
When I was about eight or nine, I went through a period of reading lots of (juvenile) non-fiction - mostly biographies, history and myths. I don't remember the specific titles, but I particularly remember reading biographies of James Cook and John Paul Jones, histories of ancient Egypt and medieval Europe, the myths of Perseus and Jason, and especially the history/myths surrounding the Trojan War.
And of course I went through a dinosaur phase, but the dinosaur book I remember most clearly was heavy on pictures and light on text.
Then when I was about ten, I switched pretty much entirely to reading fiction.
Would "Carry On. Mr Bowditch" count?
As an entertaining biography written for kids, it's not a reference book, but it's not purely fiction, either.
Closer to reference would be another favourite, "The Ashley Book of Knots, which I devoured.
Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier. It's racist and pro genocide, but dude had a crazy life.
Sadly I was exposed to Bermuda Triangle nonsense, von Däniken pseudo archeology, and Pauwels/Berger bullshit. The sanest I read was Your Erroneous Zones (that was before Dyer became a Chopra wannabe).
I think the magic tree house books came with nonfiction pairs. "Jack's notebooks" or something like that. I was crazy for them.
But for me fiction and nonfiction were both mostly at the library, so I wouldn't say the nonfiction books were around more.
I suddenly realize what memories of the children's section of the library I do have are 100% about fiction. They must have had at least a little nonfiction for kids, but…no memories.
I can't remember specific titles but Usbourne books did tonnes of non fiction books on history, space and how the body works that I loved.
But the Horrible Histories series probably won hands down.
