In the publishing industry, as in many others, merger and acquisition announcements are commonplace—so commonplace that unless you are working for one of these companies, it’s easy to lose track of who owns whom. And really, except for those employees, will the world of readers really notice that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is now going to be part of HarperCollins? When the finalization of that deal was announced last May, it felt like more of the same old thing.

But I was moved by the late-June announcement of the acquisition of Cinco Puntos Press by Lee and Low Books. Once a small multicultural publisher, Lee and Low has expanded over the past decade or so, acquiring Children’s Book Press, Shen’s Books, and Tu Books, targeted acquisitions that have allowed it to expand its reach without losing sight of its mission to publish books by and about people too often overlooked. The purchase of Cinco Puntos is very much in that vein, the small El Paso–based press having carved out its own niche as an early publisher of bilingual English/Spanish books for children and having built a robust list of Latinx and other diverse titles. It is a good fit.

But I’ll miss the old Cinco Puntos. Founded in 1985 by Lee and Bobby Byrd, it was the very definition of a passion project. They never had the cash that larger publishers did, but they never compromised their values. This attitude and this drive produced some of the cooler books I’ve handled in my tenure, books that were nurtured by the specific vision of the Byrds.

I was charmed by A Perfect Season for Dreaming/Un tiempo perfecto para sonar (2008), which was my first introduction to the multitalented author Benjamin Alire Sáenz. As illustrated by Esau Andrade Valencia, it describes the gloriously fantastical dreams of 78-year-old Octavio Rivera, giving picture-book readers a taste of magical realism and a beautiful intergenerational story of love and legacy.

Andrade Valencia applied his saturated palette and sense of surrealist whimsy to Don’t Say a Word, Mama/No digas nada, Mamá (2013), a story of sisterly love and gardening from bilingual storyteller Joe Hayes. Mamá’s three daughters are prodigious gardeners, growing huge quantities of tomatoes, corn, and chiles and generously gifting their bounty to one another and to Mamá until her kitchen overflows.

With trickster story Chukfi Rabbit’s Big, Bad Bellyache (2014), Cinco Puntos paired the talents of two Choctaw creators, storyteller Greg Rodgers and illustrator Leslie Stall Widener. When Ms. Possum, who needs a new house, organizes an “everybody-work-together-day” to be followed by a thank-you dinner, Chukfi’s scheme to enjoy the dinner without doing the work backfires in laugh-out-loud fashion. (Note: Widener is a contributor to Kirkus.)

Xavier Garza’s sweet middle-grade series about lucha libre–loving Max gives kids a delightful protagonist whose family and school relationships form a rich, emotional backdrop for the aspiring luchador’s adventures. The fourth in the series, Maximilian the Curse of the Fallen Angel (2020), finds Garza’s storytelling and worldbuilding assured and compelling in both English and Spanish (via Luis Humberto Crosthwaite’s translation).

Last year Cinco Puntos ventured into graphic novels with Rise of the Halfling King (2020), by David Bowles and illustrated by the author’s daughter, Charlene Bowles. It kicks off a 10-book series adapting stories from Bowles’ magisterial YA collection of Mesoamerican myths, Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky, for middle graders.

These and Cinco Puntos’ other titles will find a good home with Lee and Low, whose commitment to keeping books in print is legendary and who will bring back some out-of-print Cinco Puntos titles. But it’s still the end of an era, as Lee and Bobby will be enjoying some well-earned rest. They and their talented team showed what can be done with a tiny budget and big determination.

Vicky Smith is a young readers’ editor.