As a kid, my parents always got me these vibrant illustrated encyclopedias. I had one on plants, one on animals, one on space and science, and basically, one for any topic you could think of. Some were meant for kids, and others were more grown-up. Now that I think about it, I probably owned more encyclopedias than regular storybooks. My parents had a massive book collection, but that was more their thing. Me? I had a whole shelf dedicated just to encyclopedias. I can't recall the exact titles or who published them, but the illustrations were similar to the ones I found published by DK books below. Mine weren't as 3D-ish, but you get the idea.