News : Blank Park Zoo animals visit Library Summer Reading Program participants

Camden Merino touches the 2 1/2-year-old alligator, Notch, at the Vinton Library.

Blank Park Zoo educator Audrey Pohlmaan discusses this parrot at Vinton Library.

Children saw an alligator face-to-face as part of Summer Reading Program today at Vinton Library.

Emma Lau takes her turn as she carefully touches the alligator's tail.

Audrey showed the students how the parrot likes to hang, upside-down, like a bat.

Children's Librarian Sharon Rhinehart and Blank Park Zoo's Audrey Pohlmann.

Kenyatta Yarbrough touches the tail of the young alligator as Audrey Pohlmann holds him.

The students of the Vinton Library Summer Reading program saw a variety of animals from Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines Wednesday as part of the annual reading promotion.

The students saw a parrot, a python, a small alligator and a tiger salamander. Given the choice between touching the gator, salamander or python, the students voted for the gator. They took turns touching its tail.

"We are visiting 100 libraries this summer," said Audrey Pohlmann, an educational specialist at Blank Park. "This is the first time we've really taken the zoo all over Iowa."

Pohlmann held the animals as she briefly described each one, and answered questions from the students who filled the room in the library basement.