Storytime at the Library Features a Real Alligator

Children’s Librarian Susan Scatena of the Whitestone branch of the public library system of Queens, New York promised her kids something amazing: if the 300 children registered with the summer reading program read at least 4,000 books, she would read a story to an alligator. And not to a stuffed animal version, but a real alligator.
The kids reached that goal and Ms. Scatena kept her word. Last September, before an audience of hundreds of children and one alligator, she read Mercer Mayer’s There’s an Alligator under My Bed. Wally, a five-foot long alligator, and her handler, Eric Callendar, listened attentively.
Do you see anything wrapped around Wally’s mouth to act as a muzzle? I don’t.