Plus it would be cool if you could recommend some particular essential non-fiction books that should be taught in schools, or that people should read if they didn’t read them in school.
Your non-fiction books were all the other textbooks in all the other subjects. Literature specifically focuses on fiction, not just “books”
Aren’t textbooks nonfiction?
So a catholic school ? /s
Dang, yall didn’t have textbooks?
Disagree with your underlying assertion that students do not read nonfiction books. Your textbooks are nonfiction.
In terms of more “classic” nonfiction materials, j don’t think it’s a very important skill. Something like Anne Frank’s diary or Night can definitely be powerful, but I don’t think reading a secondary source on the American civil war has any more value for a student than a chapter in a textbook.