By Krista Jorgensen
If you ever get a chance to sit down for a cup of tea with Vicky Fang, one of North Vancouver’s newest children’s authors, you will quickly realize that she shatters every stereotype about "math and tech" people. Warm, humble, and quietly engaging, Vicky has an instant way of making you feel like you're chatting with an old friend.
Her journey into children’s literature has been anything but a straight line. Before writing children’s books, she lived in Silicon Valley and worked as a product designer for Google, creating digital tools to introduce the next generation to coding and technology. However, her perspective shifted dramatically when she became a parent to two young boys. She found herself stepping away from the glowing screens of her day job and into the quiet, magical space of sharing bedtime stories with her kids, which ultimately transformed the way she thought about science, storytelling, and technology.
At work, she found that the answer to an educational gap was almost always technological and usually involved designing an app or digital platform. Yet, huddled on the bedtime reading rug with her boys, Vicky realized sharing a physical book was doing something a screen never could. She fell in love with the simple, tactile magic of turning pages and sharing spontaneous laughter.
It was during these quiet evening hours that Vicky began writing. Her work at Google had given her access to a wealth of user research, which showed that no matter how high-tech the tool, children are innately drawn to character and story; if you want to engage a child, you must capture their heart first.
Having a goal of writing a book is one thing: finding the hours to actually do it while raising two young children is another. Armed with that insight, Vicky began writing "in the edges of time,” a concept any parent of young kids intimately understands. Because picture books are concise, usually around 500 words, she discovered she could build and revise an entire manuscript completely in her head. The nursery rocking chair became her creative writing laboratory. While rocking her youngest son to sleep in the dark, she noodled her first stories together, carefully engineering the plot and word choices. By the time her hands finally touched a keyboard, the story had already been meticulously constructed.
The Screen-Free STEM Philosophy
As those first stories took shape, so did Vicky’s core philosophy: books are a screen-free way to introduce kids to STEM. In a world where parents are bombarded with the message that children need more apps to build digital literacy, Vicky’s time at Google taught her the exact opposite. True technical literacy doesn't require the use of a device; it requires a specific way of looking at the world.
Through her stories, Vicky focuses on pulling back the curtain on technical jargon and showing kids that they are already thinking like computer scientists every day. Long before a child ever touches a keyboard, they are learning how to decode the world through logic, cause-and-effect, and creative problem-solving.
Instead of teaching technical syntax, she introduces children to a universal STEM thought process. Her characters navigate challenges using the exact same problem-solving methodologies that real-world engineers rely on. Young readers watch as these characters research a problem, brainstorm solutions, break a complex concept into smaller, logical steps, build a prototype, and go back to the drawing board to revise their work when it goes wrong.
By framing technical structures within engaging narratives, she strips away the intimidation factor. Vicky notes that many people shut down when they encounter terms like "engineering" or "science." To dismantle that wall, she infuses her books with generous doses of humour. If a child is giggling at a grumpy, mystery-solving feline or a silly band of robots, their defences drop.
For parents and educators, books like Vicky’s offer a gentle, safe space to model what healthy failure looks like. When a child watches a beloved character survive a spectacular mistake and cheerfully pivot to a backup plan, they realize that making a mistake isn't a terminal diagnosis; it is just a necessary piece of the creative puzzle.
Empowering Kids Through Representation and Inclusion
This empowerment through storytelling naturally extends to who gets to be the hero of the story. For Vicky, a shift in technical perspective must go hand in hand with a commitment to representation and cultural inclusion. Recent research studies have shown that STEM characters played by women of colour have a positive impact on young women of colour who are watching—and their peers. When young people see characters who look like them actively engineering solutions, it quietly breaks down outdated stereotypes about who “belongs” in science and technology.
Vicky intentionally sets out to create these models. In her popular chapter book series, Layla and the Bots, she introduces an empowering protagonist who is both a rock star and a master inventor. Similarly, with her Ava Lin chapter books, Vicky wanted to bring a funny, relatable Chinese American girl to the centre of the story, providing the exact cultural mirror she wanted her own half-Chinese sons to see.
Because Vicky launched Layla and the Bots during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,
she initially spent a long time writing in a quiet vacuum. That isolation made the eventual return to in-person events incredibly emotional. At her very first live bookstore gathering, a little girl proudly walked up to her, clutching a collection of fan art she had lovingly drawn of Layla and her robots. For the first time, Vicky could see that her stories were inspiring young minds.
That profound magic connection is something she witnesses time and again during her school visits. During one presentation, a little girl sitting in the front row spent the entire hour looking up at Vicky in absolute wonder. Throughout the chat, the student kept turning to her friend beside her, whispering over and over, “Am I awake, or am I dreaming? Somebody pinch me!”
Her Secret Weapon: A Double Major in Math and Theatre
How does a former tech product designer manage to hold a room filled with school children in such absolute, spellbound wonder? If you dig deeper into Vicky’s background, you uncover a delightful surprise that explains how she infuses her books with such a unique, kinetic energy: at university, she was a double major in mathematics and theatre. After graduating, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood, working as an actress for four years. Wanting to explore visual narratives even further, she later attended graduate school in New York for design and technology, diving into interactive art installations, television, and gaming.
When she initially tried to transition into product design, she lacked traditional industry experience. However, a design firm recognized the unique value of her background in game design and brought her on board, teaching her the ropes from the ground up.
While computing algorithms, game mechanics, and theatrical stage directions might seem like entirely opposite universes, Vicky views them as a single, continuous thread of storytelling. To her, math brings structural elegance, while theatre teaches her how to control emotional pacing and craft dialogue that snaps.
This vibrant blend of data and drama serves as her creative superpower, producing stories that are fresh, interactive, and deeply entertaining. That unique intersection is on full display this summer as she celebrates a packed season with three major book releases that showcase her incredible range:
• Lots and Lots of Ocelots: A rhythmic, poetic picture book that introduces the mathematical concept of skip-counting, written entirely in a complex, puzzling rhyme scheme.
• Spaghetti Code: A brilliant, accessible introduction to the world of coding, co-authored with supermodel and tech-advocate Karlie Kloss.
• One Mad Cat: A hilarious early reader chapter book about a grumpy, mystery-solving feline that models logical deduction and perseverance.
Life in North Van and the Creative Puzzle
Driven by a desire to keep growing and learning, Vicky is currently tackling her next creative hurdle: her very first self-illustrated picture book. Now settled in North Vancouver with her husband and two boys, Vicky’s daily life is just as beautifully balanced between creativity and science. When she isn't writing, you can usually find her out on local trails looking at bugs with her older son, a budding naturalist. Other days are spent leaning into her love for making things alongside her younger son, whether dropping into a pottery studio or painting cardboard displays to decorate a local bookstore window.
When the creative gears grind to a halt, Vicky ditches her computer screen entirely. She goes back to basics with a simple physical pen and paper, doodling ideas in all directions. She describes writing a rhyming book like Lots and Lots of Ocelots as a massive puzzle. Because the text had to maintain a strict poetic meter while representing mathematical intervals of animal groupings, she had to sketch out pages of arrows, rhymes, and dot charts by hand, a tactile process that could never quite be replicated digitally.
To maintain focus amidst the beautiful chaos of family life, Vicky relies on community accountability. Once a week, she meets up with a local North Vancouver writing group. The authors chat, and then set a strict 30-minute timer to write in absolute silence. She compares it to having a gym partner—the gentle pressure forces you to put words on the page. It is a system that works beautifully, surrounded by what she describes as one of the kindest, most supportive communities in the world: the kid-lit community.
Ultimately, if you ask Vicky for her single biggest piece of advice for fellow writers, teachers, or parents looking to connect with a child, her answer is beautifully simple: you have to find the heart of your story. True connection happens when you find what genuinely excites you about a topic and transfer that raw, authentic wonder directly to the child.
As she looks ahead to a busy summer, Vicky remains firmly anchored by that human connection. Because at the end of the day, her greatest reward isn’t measured in digital book rankings or corporate sales analytics. The true magic happens in the real world: watching a child light up over a page, drop their defences, and realize that their own incredible brain is fully capable of solving the world's most beautiful puzzles.
For more information on Vicky Fang and her many books, visit vickyfang.com.
Krista Jorgensen is a former librarian, homeschooling mom of two, and avid reader based in Calgary. When she isn’t curled up with a good book, you can find her hiking the nearby Rockies or hitting the pavement with a jump rope.