Reptiles Wind Their Way Into Kids’ Hearts

Alan Carlton raised his voice over the chattering of the preschoolers surrounding him Wednesday morning.

“Now, we’re going to bring out some snakes,” he announced.

A chorus of tiny screams rippled through the room at the Conejo Valley Parent Education Center. One little boy dove under a nearby table. But as Carolyn Carlton pulled the small boa constrictor from its basket, most of the children eagerly reached forward to touch and, maybe, get a chance to hold the snake.

This was just one of several performances Alan and Carolyn Carlton, a.k.a. The Reptile People, did at the center this week. Class after class trooped into the room to pet lizards, a turtle and the snakes, and to hear the Carltons talk about the scaly creatures.

Alan Carlton has been showing his reptiles and other animals since 1972. His wife, Carolyn, joined him when he branched into birthday parties about six years ago. The couple do their programs full time.

At the parenting center, they encouraged the children to touch and hold the reptiles, which included an iguana and a young cape monitor lizard named Cassandra. Also featured was Nefertiti, a tortoise just big enough for the 3- to 5-year-olds to sit on.

“Excuse me, I don’t want to hold one,” Ali Skewes-Cox, 4, loudly told Alan Carlton when he said the children could hold the reptiles.

On the other hand, Jamison Hunt, who said he was 5, couldn’t get enough of the lemon-colored albino python, which was 13 feet long and weighed 75 pounds. “That snake, that was really cool,” he said. “It felt like lemonade.”

At another show that day, Scott Frey, 4, rushed forward asking to hold a snake. But as Alan Carlton wrapped the 1-year-old constrictor around the boy’s neck, the shocked look on Scott’s face suggested he was having serious second thoughts.

Carly Goodkin, 4, who had seen The Reptile People at her own birthday party, was practically an expert. “I had holded it before,” she said about the snakes. “It sort of makes you shake, because they hug you so tight.”