Maria and the Stars of Nazca, by Anita Jepson-Gilbert, is a bilingual children's picture book depicting the Nazca Lines of Peru and alsoDr. Maria Reiche, who spent most of her life studying and working to preserve them. The story, written in English and Spanish, simultaneously, is told in short, poetic lines. Its style blends reality and imagination to appeal to young readers and to illustrate the relation of the Lines and Figures to the stars and to the rising and setting of the sun. This was a theory proposed by Maria Reiche, herself, after years of careful observation. Illustrations are full two-page spreads to give the impression of the enormous size of the Nazca line drawings. Each figure has been drawn to scale, based on actual aerial photographs taken by Dr. Reiche and included in her own book, Mystery on the Desert.