I’m not sure if these are widely known, but I am a big fan of Stephen Biesty’s cross section books. I borrowed those from the library all the time. And bought them as an adult! They’re fun reads and very informative. Everyone who picks one up will end up smiling when they read them.
They were widely known, at least in my family. My brother and I went nuts for those books. The castle one even showed the facilities, naked asses and all. Funny shit when you're 10.
Biesty includes a pooping figure in literally every drawing where a bathroom can feasibly be accommodated. Sometimes several. It’s basically his signature move.
Not that I would do anything different mind you. Even adult me always looks for the Signature Pooper.
As a poor kid in latinamerica, without access to D&D manuals, those where my home mande RPG manuals. Everything hit with a d6 also because other kind of die where out of reach.
Dinosaurs and castles. Honestly, anything with history was probably high on the list. I was already a big history dork from basically the time I could read.
In middle school in the 80s I was really into comics and dungeons and dragons and at lunch I'd go to the library and read books like these about medieval weapons and old guns, it was like a fantasy pardise