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.

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.

I think it was made by Reader's Digest and was called Fact Finder. Was full of all sorts of facts, loved it. Also had some kids books about ancient Egypt and Greece small the trials of Hercules. Couldn't get enough.

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.

H.G. Wells’ A Short History of the World.

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.

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).

Kit Carson and the Wild Frontier. It's racist and pro genocide, but dude had a crazy life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_in_the_Big_Woods

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.