As a kid who learned how to read in the 90’s, there was a push to get kids reading as much as possible. Libraries hosted summer reading programs. Teachers gave us buttons and free Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizzas for reading throughout the school year. Our schools handed out book order forms and held book fairs to hype up the idea of buying books.
To a reader like me, these incentives were just bonuses because I was going to read anyway. But to non-readers, not only did there have to be a reward, but they had to find a book that was going to be worth their time.
In dropped a bunch of gimmicky books that tried to draw in the non-readers and make reading a cooler and more interesting activity for all types of readers. Below are 10 types of books that 90’s kids loved to read. This post contains affiliate links, and I will earn a commission on any sales.
Books full of weird facts
Kids love to learn when they’re learning about topics that they want to know about. The weirder and more impressive, the better.
In came The Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe it or Not! These coffee table books were full of strange and amazing things that people had done throughout history. They could be gross or superhuman or even poignant. But kids would scoop up the latest editions of these series from the shelves and flip through them, sharing their favorite facts and stories that they’d learned inside.
Searching picture books
Some books were strictly made for the pictures. They were meant to be studied instead of read. But a book is a book. So, these felt like they counted, even if there was no story and no real words to read.
The Where’s Waldo? and I Spy books were perfect examples of this genre. These books would give you lists of things to find, and then you would scan detailed drawings or photos full of objects for the items on this list.
I still have the copy of Where’s Waldo in Hollywood along with the white stuffed bear that I won in a library giveaway years ago. And Waldo is still as hard for me to find as he was in 1996.
The Magic Eye books
Another popular picture book series for non-readers who were forced to borrow a book from the school or public library now and then often gravitated toward the Magic Eye books. Each page was filled with a strange graphic design that looked like a scrambled TV screen. You then placed the center of the book against the tip of your nose and slowly pulled it back. If your eyes adjusted just right, a gray 3D image would appear in the middle of the page and disappear if you lost focus or blinked.
The back of the book would contain a few pages that would show you the image that would appear on each page from butterflies to cars to cartoon characters. I could usually see a few of the images in each book but never was able to see them all. I would get frustrated and end up with headaches trying over and over to make them appear. And if any kid claimed to be able to see them all, they were lying.
Joke books
Back to books with actual words in them, joke books were another popular choice. I remember checking out a Disney-themed joke book several times throughout grade school. They were corny and didn’t really make you laugh out loud, but they were still fun to read to your friends. As a lifelong fan of comedy, I appreciated any book that was lighthearted and made you think about what was funny.
Pop up books
The book industry brought out the big guns when they figured out how to create 3D images that would fold up when a page was opened and then fold down flat when the page was closed. Pop up books could be hard to find, and they weren’t very well written. They were also usually really short because the pop up images took up so much page space and thickness.
So, these books were more of a toy than actual literature. But they were fun to manipulate and see these intricate scenes pop out from page to page.
Interactive books with flaps
These days, almost every picture book that my niece and nephew own have some sort of flaps, textures, or other features to interact with on the pages of their picture books. In the 90’s, these interactive books were not nearly as prevalent.
But we did have the Spot books, easy reader picture books with cardboard flaps that would show the little yellow puppy, Spot, hiding behind a bush or waiting behind a door. Teachers would read these books, and it would be fun to watch them pull back the flaps to see the hidden image beneath the surface.
We also had fun electronic books, such as books based on the latest Disney movie with buttons on the side that you would push when prompted in the story. These buttons would make noises or play songs related to the story, and it was particularly fun for young readers to contribute to the storytelling by pressing a few of these buttons on each page when prompted.
Movie and TV show novelizations
Some kids might not have had any interest in reading a novel, but they might make an exception if that novel was based on a favorite movie or TV show. These books also usually had glossy colorized photos from the movie or show buried in the middle of the book. So, you could just flip to those if you didn’t feel like reading the books.
I remember reading my copy of Beethoven’s 2nd from cover to cover. I also owned a collection of books based on Nickelodeon shows. The movie novelizations often provided additional details about the movie, such as the internal monologue of the characters or additional scenes that weren’t in the movie. The TV novelizations gave you additional stories in the vein of these shows, almost like a bonus episode.
Popular book series
When kids had to choose a novel to read, they often picked from the popular series of the time. Goosebumps, The Boxcar Children, The Baby-sitters Club, Encyclopedia Brown, and other series were the first to disappear from shelves.
Though part of a series, these books could usually be read out of order. So, you could take whatever was available without worrying about getting a specific book in the series.
They were often short reads coming in between 100 and 150 pages. They were also formulaic and easy to get through. And those who loved to read devoured their favorite series, collecting their favorite editions and swapping with friends in an attempt to read them all.
Anthologies
The 90’s even found a way to make short stories and poetry collections cool by packaging them in cool anthologies with catchy titles and memorable covers. The Random House Books, Shel Silverstein poetry collections, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul books made you feel sophisticated and cultured but contained stories and poems you actually wanted to read.
These books were funny, relatable, and best of all, were full of short reads that didn’t have the commitment of reading an entire novel from cover to cover. You could pick and choose what to read and in what order to read them. They were nice and thick so you could impress your friends by carrying around these college textbook sized books but easy enough to read that they weren’t intimidating.
Assigned reading
The only reading that some kids ever did were the books that we were assigned to read in school. And even then, there was no guarantee that they actually read the whole thing or any of it at all.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, James and the Giant Peach, and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler were memorable editions that we read in school in the 90’s. Check out my post about my love of Dear Mr. Henshaw here.
A good English teacher would also read to the class every week. They weren’t books that were part of the lesson plan, just books that they would read to us for fun.
I remember my fifth-grade teacher reading us The Time Warp Trio series and Night of the Twisters while we gathered our chairs around in a semi-circle around her. She was an enthusiastic reader and held our attention with her booming narration and different voices.
She made reading fun, not a chore or something to be tested on. And it left a lasting imprint, whether we became readers or if our reading journeys ended there.
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I was not a 90s kid. Grow up in the 2000s with all these books on this list.
They definitely trickled down to 2000s kids too. Thanks for reading!