Lady of the Lines: How Maria Reiche Saved the Nazca Lines by Sweeping the Desert

In revelatory prose from Maccoll, this fascinating biography details the efforts of one individual to conserve the shallow figures and shapes etched by an ancient civilization, the Nazca, into the Peruvian desert: Maria Reiche (1903–1998), the German woman whose work led to the geoglyphs’ designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. First hired by an American anthropologist to see if the Lines might have served as a star chart, she then dedicated her remaining life to the forms. Acrylic gouache paintings by Chavarri present naturalistic portraits of Reiche sweeping years of accumulated dirt and pebbles out of etchings to reveal the image of “a spider as big as four city buses.” Later, Reiche becomes an activist, persuading Peru to preserve the Lines. The work calls attention to an individual who dedicated her life to a cultural treasure and invites readers to solve the puzzle of the Nazca Lines’ function. Ample back matter offers further context. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 7–10. (Apr.)