Welcome to Poetry4kids. I’m Kenn Nesbitt. With Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to write a poem about the holiday. I had already written a poem about spooky monsters called “The Monsters’ Thanksgiving,” so this time I thought it would be fun to come up with a poem about trick-or-treating. I imagined creating a time-saving device to help collect more candy, and the idea of an army of trick-or-treating robots came to me.
The very next day, I saw a headline that read, “Inventor Builds Six Robot Copies of Himself, Uses One to Give Speeches and Take Questions From Audience.” I took that as a sign that my idea was timely—and that this was definitely a poem I needed to write! I hope you enjoy it.
Robot Halloween
I built a hundred robots, and
I thought it would be neat
to send them out on Halloween
and have them trick-or-treat.
They went in all directions
as they sped from door to door,
collecting treats at every house,
then moving on for more.
My robots were efficient.
They were speedy and polite.
They quickly went to every single
house in town that night.
They brought their load of candy home
and dumped it on the floor.
It filled the house so fast,
it started spraying out the door.
An avalanche of candy poured
across our porch and lawn.
Our yard was buried instantly.
Our plants and fence were gone.
We may no longer have a house
or yard, but it appears
our candy pile is big enough
to last for many years.
It turns out having robots
trick-or-treat is pretty handy.
Just make sure you have room to store
a hundred tons of candy.
— Kenn Nesbitt
