Did many of you even have much nonfiction?
When someone grows nostalgic about childhood books, they generally talk about fiction, but my fiction reading nearly all came from the library and had to go back, so I don’t remember it as clearly as the nonfiction in the bookcase that I’d flip through and look at the pictures and read some here and there.
I used to love the Eyewitness books as a kid.
Those covers with the white backgrounds are very inviting.
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!
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.
Fouché by Stephan Zweig!!
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.
H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World.
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).
