It all started with a vision.

For Rick Wilks and Anne Millyard, co-founders of Annick Press, that vision was to support youth by encouraging them to write, “address their thoughts, feelings, fears, and anxieties, and share them with other youth,” Wilks says.

The two were cognizant that there was virtually no Canadian publishing in general at the time, and it was a gap they wanted to fill. With no publishing background, but a shared belief, they founded Books By Kids in 1975, which was operated out of Millyard’s north Toronto home, with a desk in the basement big enough for both of them, and not one, but two Remington electric typewriters.

One of their early titles, Wordsandwich, an anthology of stories by kids for kids, took off, garnering them national publicity. In fact, the response from kids was so great the mail carrier on their route quit because they were getting so many submissions. “One book led to another, which led to another, and then, one day, a couple of years later, I heard myself describing myself as a publisher,” Wilks recalls. Within a few years, the independent Toronto publishing house was renamed Annick Press – a combination of the founders’ first names.

The move also opened the door to adult contributors, including Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko, whose feminist tale The Paper Bag Princess put the press on the map internationally.

“Bob is deeply aligned with what Annick is all about: connecting to kids with stories that are empowering, while respecting their intelligence, their wits, and emotional understandings,” says Wilks of Munsch, who was diagnosed with dementia in 2021. “Second, of course, are the millions of copies of his books that we’ve sold. I constantly meet people who have purchased his books because they enjoyed them so much as kids.” 

To date, The Paper Bag Princess, alone, has sold seven million copies and consistently appears on Bookmanager’s bestsellers list.

Titles such as The Paper Bag Princess allowed Annick to break away from what Wilks calls the instructive and didactic nature of children’s literature at the time, to books that hold conversations with kids and forge a supportive stance about the experiences of childhood combined with the joy of reading.

To see that joy, which has always been paramount for Wilks, come under attack with book bans, shadow bans, and ministerial orders has been deeply disheartening. The restrictions imposed on 2SLGBTQ+ books at Ontario’s Waterloo District School Board in 2023 included two Annick titles: The Mystery of the Painted Fan by Linda Trinh and Salma Writes a Book by Danny Ramadan.  

Annick Press co-founders Anne Millyard and Rick Wilks: Michael Martchenko.

Annick Press at 50: A visual timeline, 1975–2025

For Wilks, it’s far more than a ban on books; it’s a ban on people and ideas. “[Annick] is getting banned on a very regular basis. It’s not just the direct banning of books, but we know there’s a chill out there. It’s getting in the way of essential conversations we believe we have to be having in our society,” Wilks says. “If they’re not comfortable with them, people don’t have to bring the books into their own family, their kids don’t have to read them in the library, but preventing others from reading them is despicable.”

When Millyard retired in 2000, Wilks became the sole owner of Annick Press. Under his guidance the press’s list grew to include various genres and formats all for young readers. Among them are such classics as Red is Best by Kathy Stinson, The Mole Sisters series by Roslyn Schwartz, and Baseball Bats for Christmas by Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak, a new edition of which will be released next month.

An important piece indicative of the press’s evolution is their mentorship program, which was launched in 2021. The program is designed for those who have historically been excluded in publishing in Canada – racially marginalized people, Indigenous writers, and disabled people. Those selected as mentees are paid $1,000, but are not obligated to publish with Annick. To date, Annick has received 485 applications, and have signed contracts for books with 10 authors.

Of the 10, seven were selected from the program, including Sahar Golshan, author of So Loud!, and Danny Neville, author of Little Bee: The Buzz About the Party (the first in an early chapter book series to be released April 2026). The other three writers weren’t chosen for the mentorship program, but their books left an impression, including Li Charmaine Anne’s Crash Landing, which won the Governor’s General’s Award last year and just won the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize in B.C.

“It gives me a lot of satisfaction that we’re able to do this,” Wilks says. “All those who apply, even if they’re not selected, get a response to the writing they’ve submitted. This is giving back to the community and encouraging communities who have not been involved in the publishing universe to get engaged.”  

In 2020, Wilks made a move to secure Annick’s future and cemented a partnership with another independent publisher, ECW Press. The two presses now share office space on Gerrard Street East in Toronto. Today, David Caron, co-publisher and president of ECW, helms the day-to-day operations in consultation with Wilks, who has no plans to retire. From a duo working out of Millyard’s home, Annick has evolved to a staff of 19, not including Wilks and Caron, publishing about 20 books per year.

To mark their 50th anniversary and The Paper Bag Princess’s 45th, Annick and Munsch have launched the Mega Munsch Writing Challenge. From September to November, Grade 3 students across Canada are invited to celebrate The Paper Bag Princess by picking up the story where it left off. Individual students, groups within a class, or an entire class, can submit entries of a maximum of 350 words. Each of the five winners, who will be selected in January, will receive a printed book, a note from Munsch, and a certificate.

Wilks confesses he has yet to get over the enormity of the number 50, but does feel immense gratitude. “It’s really important for me to have a belief system, to have a voice, and to have a mechanism for acting on my beliefs, and with the support of a fantastic staff, we’re able to do that, and it means the world to me,” Wilks says. “How many people get the opportunity to put out material that’s going to shape lives, change lives, and encourage critical and analytical thinking? These are fundamental priorities, and we’ve done that for so many years. It’s my dream come true.”