Helpful Score: 1
October Sky, originally published in 1998, under the title Rocket Boys, is a heartwarming, well-written story that readers young and old will enjoy. Homer Hickam, the son of the mine's superintendent and a patient, encouraging mother, gives the reader a first hand look into his dying community, the relationships that shaped his life and the obstacles he had to overcome in order to reach the stars. His mother, instrumental in bringing her son's visions to fruition, allows Homer and his friends to use the Hickam basement, as well the kitchen, to mix their chemical compounds. Despite the loss of several sets of pots and pans, the backyard fence and the house's hot water heater, Homer's mother endures and with the help of Homer's science teacher, encourages the efforts of the boys and their Big Creek Missile Agency. Hickam writes candidly about the volatile relationship between his parents and the contrast in their visions for their son's future. As opposed to his mother, Hickam's father, a dedicated company man, was unable to recognize the dismal future facing his town. At the same time, he did not believe that Homer had any chance of achieving his dreams, because no one had ever left the town without earning a football scholarship as a ticket out. Hickam's depiction of is efforts to win the respect of his father is touching and memorable
Helpful Score: 1
Rocket Boys, the original title for this book (and an anagram of October Sky), is a classic tale of a boy doing extraordinary things to win the love of his father. Sonny Hickam has written this memoir, based on the events that truly effected his life as he came of age in a tiny mining town in the mountains of West Virginia. As with most true stories, we sometimes root for the characters, and sometimes we shake our heads with annoyance, and wonder over how things really happen.
Homer "Sonny" Hickam is an accomplished writer whose story is easy to follow. It begins slowly, however, as we are given the background needed to see the people and places the story will envelop. This orderly attack is likely due to the fact that a retired Engineer from NASA does things in a planned and orderly fashion. Before long, however, you are struggling with Sonny to learn Calculus, to figure out girls, to race down mountain roads at breakneck speeds, and to carry the hopes and dreams of your buddies, your school, and your community into the national spotlight.
Do not let the slow beginning deter you from reading this wonderful story. And unlike most novels you read we know not just the ending of the story but also what becomes of the story's major characters in their future.
You are going to remember this book for a long time.
Homer "Sonny" Hickam is an accomplished writer whose story is easy to follow. It begins slowly, however, as we are given the background needed to see the people and places the story will envelop. This orderly attack is likely due to the fact that a retired Engineer from NASA does things in a planned and orderly fashion. Before long, however, you are struggling with Sonny to learn Calculus, to figure out girls, to race down mountain roads at breakneck speeds, and to carry the hopes and dreams of your buddies, your school, and your community into the national spotlight.
Do not let the slow beginning deter you from reading this wonderful story. And unlike most novels you read we know not just the ending of the story but also what becomes of the story's major characters in their future.
You are going to remember this book for a long time.
Helpful Score: 1
I saw the movie first, and the whole family loved it. The book's a bit different, with more details, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable account of young men in a gritty mining town who dream of space exploration in the days of Sputnik and manage to make their dreams a reality.
Helpful Score: 1
Read this one with my son. There were a few questionable passages for someone my son's age, but overall it was a great read and look back into the backbone of America during the space race.
Helpful Score: 1
Hugely interesting of kids growing up in a W.Va. coal town and thier deep interest in rockets. Excellant description of the life in coalmine country.
True story about teenager from West Virginia who became a NASA engineer. Details life in coal mining town in the early 1960's as well as his rocket adventures with his high school friends aka the Rocket Boys.
An interesting read of a factual happening.
The events in the book predate me by just a few years, and I remember how we were all glued to the TV for the Apollo missions as I grew up. This is a well-told true story, and I can't imagine what all they cut in making the movie of the same name (book original title was "Rocket Boys").
A wonderful, uplifting, and true story of a boy from a coal-mining town in West Virginia with an aptitude for science and an inspirational teacher who one day becomes a US astronaut.
even if you have seen the movie October Sky, this rich and well written book contains many pleasures - the truth is far more interesting than the film could portray!
A wonderful story of a young boy with a dim future working to make a dream come true. A great read!
Thought provoking!!
A true story that inspired the Universal Pictures Film. Originally published as Rocket Boys.
Great book for bookclub reading.
a great read. I closed this book with an immense feeling of satisfaction.
The true story of the Rocket Boys of Coalwood, West Virginia during the Cold War.
Great reading, easy to understand.
I really liked this book. I couldn't stand the swearing or the teenage boy talk about girls (or even how the girls acted, Oh my goodness!) but I liked the story. These boys never gave up, against all odds. Homer had a vision, his friends caught it and it became a goal for the whole town.
A very good read!
A great read.
Was well written, but not the kind of books I really like to read.
A great read!
Have you ever finished reading a book, closed its covers and said to yourself, or even out loud, "God, I which I had written this!" That's what kind of book this is.
I was a teenager by the end of the 50s. I remember Sputnik. I remember the music and the clothes and the different cliques of kids, in and out of school. I've read other books on the coalfields and the men who mined the coal and ran the companies. This is a work of non-fiction, and not only are the people in this book real, but the author makes you understand they are real.
I've already been over to DVDSwap and WLed the movie.
I was a teenager by the end of the 50s. I remember Sputnik. I remember the music and the clothes and the different cliques of kids, in and out of school. I've read other books on the coalfields and the men who mined the coal and ran the companies. This is a work of non-fiction, and not only are the people in this book real, but the author makes you understand they are real.
I've already been over to DVDSwap and WLed the movie.
Originally published as Rocket Boys
Originally published as Rocket Boys, inspired the Universal Pictures film. Holds your attention from beginning to end!
It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying.
Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mines superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how to turn scraps of metal into sophisticated rockets but how to sustain their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive.
As the boys began to light up the starry skies with their flaming projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood, and the Hickams, would never be the same.
It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying.
Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mines superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how to turn scraps of metal into sophisticated rockets but how to sustain their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive.
As the boys began to light up the starry skies with their flaming projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood, and the Hickams, would never be the same.
Movie Tie-In
Didn't read it.
