The Picture Book Room was the original location of the Boys and Girls Room and features 13 individual murals of heroes from classic and epic tales such as Aladdin, Paul Bunyan, and Joan of Arc. Jade green and gold backgrounds complement the design. Each panel is six feet three inches high. The actual inlays are about three and a half feet high.

The murals in the Toddler Room feature nursery rhymes and fables in a continuous frieze around the room. This was formerly the Story Hour Room and the panels in this area measure four feet high.

Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights, also known as The Book of One Thousand and One Nights is a medieval Middle Eastern literary epic which tells the story of Queen Scheherazade, who must relate a series of stories to her malevolent husband, King Shahryar, to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day. The story shown here is Aladdin, an impoverished young ne'er-do-well. He is recruited by a sorcerer to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin keeps the lamp for himself, and discovers that it summons a surly djinn that is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp. With the aid of the djinn, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries princess Badroulbadour.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She asserted that she had visions from God which told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. She led troops in battle against the English but was captured at a skirmish near Compiègne the following spring. She was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in Rouen. She was the heroine of her country at the age of seventeen and died at just nineteen.

Paul Bunyan

A lumberjack of huge size and strength, Paul Bunyan is a favorite character in American folklore. Paul traveled with Babe, his blue ox, who measured 42 axe handles and had a plug of chewing tobacco between his horns. The creation of many natural wonders are credited to Paul and Babe including the creation of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes (including Lake Bemidji, which resembles Paul's giant footprint). Paul also dug the Grand Canyon by dragging his axe behind him and created Mount Hood by piling rocks on top of the campfire to put it out.

Pecos Bill

Pecos Bill is a mythical American cowboy who lived during, and was a highly important figure in, the taming of the Western frontier. He was raised by coyotes near the Pecos River after falling from a wagon as a baby. On his return to humanity he invented the lasso, tamed and rode a cyclone, used a rattlesnake as a whip, could rope an entire herd at one go, used the entire Rio Grande to water his ranch, and performed other similar feats. He rode a horse called Lightning that was also called Widow-maker. Slue-Foot Sue was the love of his life.

Pinocchio

Pinocchio, an animated marionette, was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto. Pinocchio gets into many mischievous adventures. Pinocchio’s nose grows longer each time he tells a lie. Carlo Collodi, an Italian author, wrote The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood is an English folk hero; a courteous, pious and swashbuckling outlaw of the medieval era who is famous for robbing the rich to feed the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny. He operates with his group of fellow outlawed yeomen – named the Merry Men - in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. There they fight against the Sheriff of Nottingham who abuses his position by taking over land, levying intolerable taxes, and unfairly persecuting the poor. He is the champion of the people, fighting against corrupt officials and the oppressive order that protects them.

However, in some tales Robin fights against Prince John, based on John of England, seen as the unjust usurper of his pious brother Richard. In other versions Robin is said to have been a nobleman, the earl of Loxley, who was deprived of his lands by greedy churchmen.

The Lion and the Mouse
This is a fable from Aesop
Once when a lion was asleep a little mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King," cried the little mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?"
The lion was so tickled at the idea of the mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on.
Just then the little mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little mouse. Little friends may prove

great friends.

Little Miss Muffet
This is a Mother Goose Rhyme

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey,
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Sing a Song of Sixpence
This is a Mother Goose Rhyme

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

Three little kittens they lost their mittens, and they began to cry,
"Oh mother dear, we sadly fear that we have lost our mittens."
"What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie."
"Meeow, meeow, meeow, now we shall have no pie."
The three little kittens they found their mittens,
And they began to cry,
"Oh mother dear, see here, see here
For we have found our mittens."
"Put on your mittens, you silly kittens
And you shall have some pie"
"Meeow, meeow, meeow,
Now let us have some pie."