Lee & Low Acquires Children’s Book Press – Publisher’s Weekly – Wendy Werris
Children’s Book Press, founded in 1975 by Harriet Rohmer for the specific purpose of creating a line of bilingual and multicultural books, ceased operations at the end of September and has sold its backlist inventory of 90 titles to Lee & Low Books in New York.
Dana Goldberg, former executive editor for Children’s Book Press, attributes the demise of the press to “a perfect storm of systemic things. We were a niche publisher for the institutional market, and 80 percent of our business came from schools and libraries. With the nationwide budget cuts, the last two years were really tough.” Goldberg also points to the challenge inherent in running a nonprofit publishing company. “We didn’t have to rely solely on book sales because of the fundraising side of the business, but in recent years our fundraising efforts didn’t meet expectations.” Children’s Book Press was distributed by Publishers Group West.
Business was led by two different groups, causing major issues with the company overall. Thankfully, L&L will keep the multicultural / bilingual tradition.
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