Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)
by Homer Hickam
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Book Summary Information
Author: Homer HickamEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-01-11
ISBN: 0385333218
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Delta
Book Reviews of Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)
Book Review: The Best Book I've Read in 2009
Summary: 5 Stars
As the first book of his "Coalwood Series", Author Homer Hickham garners this non-fiction book a "galaxy" rating, as it is easily the best book I have read in 2009. I intend to share it with my 14-year old son, who dreams of being a rocket engineer someday.
Set in the tiny town of Coalwood, West Virginia, (1957 - 1960) Homer Hadley Hickham suddenly discovers at age 15 that there is a whole world outside of the isolated Coalwood when he views the mysterious Russian satellite, Sputnik, pass overhead one night. The idea that the Russians could put a satellite in space inspires young Hickham to think beyond working in the Coalwood coal mine, as his father has planned for him. Encouraged by his science teacher and his wonderfuly free-thinking mother, Homer begins to build home-made rockets for the grandiose goal of someday working with the great German Scientist, Wehrner Von Braun, who leads the American space effort.
This is a most engaging and charming book. It captures the heart and soul of a teen-aged boy who has great plans, but has virtually no one to guide or help him achieve his dream. Despite daunting odds and obstacles, Homer gathers some like-thinking friends and they begin the Coalwood Rocket Club. The boys have absolutely no idea how to build or fuel a rocket, so they enlist the help of the high school math and science geek, who consistently guides the rocket boys in the right direction. Yet even the addition of a math genius is not enough, for materials for rockets are scarce. Homer enlists workers from the Coalwood mine to help him obtain the raw materials to build his rockets. The miners readily pitch in to help, but Homer's father, the mine foreman, strongly and disdainly discourages Homer from pursuing his dream, and instead tries to steer Homer to become a mine engineer, like himself. The central conflict becomes the straining tension between a father's practical expectations for his son, and the son's expnsive dreams of space flight. Is this not a universal conflict between all boys and their father's expectations?
Over the course of approximately 3 years, Homer and his rocket boys launch over 35 rockets, learning lessons from their failures as well as their successes. Along the way, Homer tenderly relates his experiences and thoughts as he makes his way through the tumultuous high school years: girls, girlfriends, sex, school dances, poverty, envy, jealousy, complex family relations, labor-union conflicts, and so much more. While rocket building is the framework for this book, the lessons and experiences of growing up in Coalwood fill out the framework in a very satisfying manner. Anyone growing up in the fifties or sixties will be instantly transported back in time to their own teenage years, for Homer's story is the story of the American Dream.
The book hooks you early on as every good book should, and then holds your interest to the very last page. I am already looking forward to devouring the remaining books in the Coalwood series.
Homer Hickham blasts off this first book and achieves a successful orbit that will keep you enthralled from start to finish. A great book, and most highly recommended.
Konedog
Summary of Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir--a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space . . . and who made those dreams come true.With the grace of a natural storyteller, NASA engineer Homer Hickam paints a warm, vivid portrait of the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evoking a time of innocence and promise, when anything was possible, even in a company town that swallowed its men alive. A story of romance and loss, of growing up and getting out, Homer Hickam's lush, lyrical memoir is a chronicle of triumph--at once exquisitely written and marvelously entertaining.
Now with 8 pages of photographs.
Inspired by Werner von Braun and his Cape Canaveral team, 14-year-old Homer Hickam decided in 1957 to build his own rockets. They were his ticket out of Coalwood, West Virginia, a mining town that everyone knew was dying--everyone except Sonny's father, the mine superintendent and a company man so dedicated that his family rarely saw him. Hickam's smart, iconoclastic mother wanted her son to become something more than a miner and, along with a female science teacher, encouraged the efforts of his grandiosely named Big Creek Missile Agency. He grew up to be a NASA engineer and his memoir of the bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science Fair in 1960--an unprecedented honor for a miner's kid--is rich in humor as well as warm sentiment. Hickam vividly evokes a world of close communal ties in which a storekeeper who sold him saltpeter warned, "Listen, rocket boy. This stuff can blow you to kingdom come." Hickam is candid about the deep disagreements and tensions in his parents' marriage, even as he movingly depicts their quiet loyalty to each other. The portrait of his ultimately successful campaign to win his aloof father's respect is equally affecting. --Wendy Smith
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