Multicultural children's book publisher Lee & Low Books has acquired Cinco Puntos Press of El Paso, Tex. The acquisition adds 130 titles to Lee & Low, including numerous award-winners as well as the first adult titles Lee & Low will publish.
Plans call for Lee & Low to publish several forthcoming Cinco Puntos titles, while also maintaining the Cinco Puntos Press name as an imprint, with the possibility of acquiring new titles under the imprint as well. The company said it will also republish many Cinco Puntos titles that have fallen out of print. Lee & Low is taking over distribution of all titles, which had been distributed by Consortium.
Among the titles involved in the sale are La Llorona/The Weeping Woman by Joe Hayes, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero.
Cinco Puntos was founded in 1985 by Bobby and Lee Byrd, and began with a mission to focus on local stories and voices. "When we first started, we looked to our friends and our neighborhood, El Paso and the U.S./Mexico border," Bobby Byrd said. "Over time, this neighborhood expanded to include the cultural diversity of all human experience, but our books always have the picante taste of the border, its politics and rasquache ways."
Jason Low, publisher of Lee & Low, said: "We have always held the books that Cinco Puntos Press published in high regard. There are very few presses in our industry that truly share Lee & Low's values, but Cinco Puntos does. The books that Lee and Bobby Byrd have chosen to publish amplify marginalized voices and reflect the ideal of a truly inclusive publishing industry."
