Mike Vago author page

Mike Vago biography

Mike Vago is a writer, paper engineer and children’s author whose interactive and informational books blend design with hands-on reading. Publisher and author sources note that he is the creator of the novelty titles The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf (2009) and The Pocket Book of Pocket Billiards (2011), and a regular contributor to The A.V. Club.

Vago’s picture-book engineering includes the board books Train: A Journey Through the Pages Book (2016) and Rocket: A Journey Through the Pages Book (2017), which invite readers to move a small vehicle through die-cut tracks while following a simple narrative. His later nonfiction title for children, The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away: A Journey Through the Amazing Scale of the Solar System (2022), uses double-gatefold spreads to model distances in space and introduce scale, orbits and relative size.

The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away won the 2024 AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books in the Middle Grades Science Book category.