My Hamster Has a Hovercraft

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My hamster has a hovercraft.
I couldn’t tell you why.
I think he’s on a secret mission.
Maybe he’s a spy.

He also has a monster truck,
a long black limousine,
a motorcycle, speedboat,
and a snazzy submarine.

He has a helicopter
and a supersonic jet,
a Lambo, a Ferrari,
and a cherry-red Corvette.

His cage contains a hamster wheel
he uses every day,
but when he saw my toys,
he snatched them up and ran away.

It seems he doesn’t need to be
the fastest pet alive.
He’s just so tired of exercise,
he’s learning how to drive.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Reading Level: Grade 4
Topics: Animal Poems
Poetic Techniques: Alliteration, Assonance, Imagery, Irony, Narrative Poems
Word Count: 104

About This Poem

When I was a kid, I had lots of toys, including toy cars, trucks, and airplanes. I loved imagining that they could go on incredible adventures, racing down highways, flying through the clouds, or speeding away from bad guys in daring escapes.

I also had quite a few pets growing up. Over the years, my family had cats and dogs, a parakeet, an aquarium full of fish, and even a snake! But there’s one pet I never had: a hamster.

That got me wondering what might happen if I combined two things I loved as a kid: pets and toy vehicles. What if a hamster got hold of a whole collection of toy cars, boats, and airplanes? What would he do with them? And why would a tiny little hamster need so many different ways to get around?

I started imagining a hamster with some pretty fancy transportation, including a monster truck, a limousine, a submarine, and even a hovercraft. Before long, I had a poem about a very unusual pet with a mysterious collection of vehicles.

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