When a section of the Penn Wynne Elementary School library was sectioned off to create additional classroom space, Librarian Brahin Tabb and students using the library were left looking at a blank white wall.
Mr. Tabb reached out to the Home & School Association with the idea of making the wall more attractive and a creative collaboration was born.
Two Penn Wynne parents, who are also artists, Seth Turner and Nan Kruzick-Fonseca, along with a committee comprised of volunteers including Stephanie Tomei, Meredith Tolan and Kara Liebeskind, worked with Mr. Tabb to imagine how best to fill the wall.
Mr. Tabb reflected on his favorite childhood television show, Reading Rainbow, and how host LeVar Burton and the theme song showed that reading can create windows into all sorts of different worlds. The artists ran with that idea and -- painting panels in their own homes -- created a series of four different windows looking into four different worlds: prehistoric times, under the sea, a modernistic Philadelphia skyline and outer space.
The panels, along with the words, "Welcome to the Library" and the theme song lyric, "Take a Look. It's in a Book!" are now permanently installed on the formerly blank wall.
Attending the mural unveiling on May 31, 2024, were members of the committee, a student who delivered thank-you notes from her class to the artists, School Board Director Kimberly Garrison and Principal Shawn Bernatowicz.
To see photos of the mural and its unveiling, you can click through the slide show below: