Anita Jepson-Gilbert

Anita Jepson-Gilbert is a poet and teacher who has taught English and ESL classes for many years in Colorado. Her interest in the Nazca Lines led her to read every book she could find about them, and they always referenced the research of Dr. Maria Reiche, a scientist and mathematician living alone on the Nazca desert, measuring and photographing the mysterious Lines. Before Dr. Reiche died in 1998, this author sent her own poem "Maria and the Stars of Nazca," to her, for approval, which Anita...See more

Anita Jepson-Gilbert is a poet and teacher who has taught English and ESL classes for many years in Colorado. Her interest in the Nazca Lines led her to read every book she could find about them, and they always referenced the research of Dr. Maria Reiche, a scientist and mathematician living alone on the Nazca desert, measuring and photographing the mysterious Lines. Before Dr. Reiche died in 1998, this author sent her own poem "Maria and the Stars of Nazca," to her, for approval, which Anita soon received. A month later, Reiche's own book, Mystery on the Desert arrived, which contains perfect drawings of most of the Nazca images. Thus, all the animal geoglyphs depicted in this book are drawn to scale from Reiche's book.Then in 2003, this author flew to Peru to visit the Lines herself. She also met with Maria Reiche's closest friends, who could give her more details about Maria's life and her effort to protect the Lines and to have it claimed as a World Heritage Site. When this bilingual book was first published in 2004 with an English and Spanish audio CD, it received 1st Prize for Best in Children's Books and also 1st Prize for its Contribution to Literacy from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. See less