Sisters transform bland Poland Union Elementary walls

POLAND — The previously bland walls of the Poland Union Elementary School library have been transformed into a “reading wonderland,” thanks to a pair of sisters.

Donna McAuley and Kim Boccia, both of Poland, are decorating the school’s library walls with animal murals straight from the pages of library books.

“This is for our school, for the kids,” said McAuley, who attended art school at Youngstown State University.

The idea for the murals came to Principal Carmella Smallhoover after Boccia painted a bulldog, the district’s mascot, for the school last year. She asked the sisters to letter the walls to replace paper signs that separated library sections, but McAuley and Boccia wanted to do “something more,” Smallhoover said.

The “something more” turned into murals of animals from library books. An anaconda and a giraffe stand eye-to-eye in one corner while a monkey hangs from a tree in another. An old white pole is now replaced with a tree made from bulletin-board paper.

“This is something that will be here for a long time,” Smallhoover said.

Read more in Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com