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Summary: What a Wonderful Book!
Review: It may be trite, but I couldn't put this book down, and read it in a single sitting one evening. For an engineer Homer has a marvelous touch with words and makes his childhood come alive. I admit to being biased, as I was the president of the Rocket Club at my high school in the late sixties, but (to quote another reviewer of another book), this book is about rocketry the way Moby Dick was about whales. It's a book about what is was like to grow up in a coal mining town in the late 50's. And it makes for great reading. It could be a surprise word of mouth best seller.
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Summary: This book is about to blast off
Review: I can't recommend this book too highly. It is so wonderful on so many levels. It is an inspiring story -- honest, personal and poignant. While it is a memoir, I found myself lost in the tale like a page-turner suspense novel. Its characters are complex and like the real people they are, not always predictable. Sonny, in his quest to break free from the gravitational pull of his coal mining home town, aims high. And I could not put down the book until I saw how far he could make it. I'm sure this books success will reach the same heights.
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Summary: Excellent
Review: I found Rocket Boys very enjoyable and fascinating, particularly in it's portrait of the day to day life of a mining town and and in Mr. Hickam's honest and compelling description of his relationship with father. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Super nostalgia for all teachers and aerospace buffs.
Review: As an aerospace teacher and one who was profoundly influenced by looking into the sky at Sputnik overhead, I can definitely identify with the Rocket Boys adventures. The prose is beautifully written allowing one to be tranported backwards to Coalwood, West Virginia during the late 1950's when values were much simpler and it didn't take much excitement to turn the whole town upside down. This book will go down on my list of all time favorites along with THE RIGHT STUFF and SPACE by Michener. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves space history and especially to teachers who hope that they will one day influence a special student as the rocket boys were influenced. It brings both a tear to my eye and a smile to my lips. I can't wait to see the movie!
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Summary: A Middle-class Steinbeck?
Review: Homer Hickam captures both a time and a place, neither of which still exist, and does it with great sensitivity and humor reminiscent of Steinbeck in another era. Everyone who was a high-schooler in the late-50's "Sputnik era" will undoubtedly identify with the book's "Sputnik speech" and the era's expectations of and for its youth and the overall quest for achievement and excellence. Mr. Hickam has provided us a realistic, believable, and humorous glimpse into one of our country's finest hours. A rewarding and enjoyable reflection!
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Summary: Encouraging and engrossing
Review: I got to get my hands on an advanced copy of this book. I couldn't put it down! It gives hope to all the "ordinary" kids out there that their dreams can indeed come true if they don't give up. I recomend this book to "kids" of all ages who have ever dreamed the dream of space. Don't miss it!
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Summary: Wonderful story of personal triumph
Review: As a reviewer for the San Antonio Express-News, I got the advance copy of this book a few weeks ago. I put it aside in order to finish a few other projects. About a week ago, I picked it up before going to bed after a late evening, intending to read it until I fell asleep. At 7:30 the next morning, I closed the book after finishing it. Oh, I tried to put it down a few times, but I finally gave it up and decided to finish it. I enjoyed it immensely, although I think it could have been a little less pretentious in spots. It almost seemed like "Revenge of the Nerds" in places. However, a very strong story very reminscent of Beverly Cleary's "Henry Huggins" stories. Should make an interesting movie, provided they concentrate on the personal triumphs and not try to turn it into a "90210" episode. A keeper.
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Summary: How I came to write Rocket Boys: A Memoir.
Review: In December, 1994, the editor of Smithsonian's Air & Space magazine called me with an urgent request. The Above and Beyond section of the magazine needed an article for the next issue. I had the reputation of being a fast writer with aerospace lore at my fingertips. Could I, would I, please provide something? I like a challenge so I replied affirmatively. I glanced at a small cylindrical object I was using as a paperweight. I picked it up. It was a sophisticated but tiny rocket nozzle. Its story was only a hazy memory. As I talked to the editor, pieces of it started to come back. "You know," I told her, "when I was a kid - growing up in a place called Coalwood, West Virginia - would you believe it? We - some boys and I - we were miner's kids - we built rockets. We won a medal - a science fair... no, the National Science Fair medal." The editor was silent for a moment and then said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm - "OK, if that's all you've got. Write it and fax it to me and we'll see." I wrote the article in three hours, the memories tumbling out of places I had not looked for decades. I didn't remember everything but enough for the 2,000 words required. I sent in the fax and forgot about it. The next day the editor called. She loved it. Would I send pictures? The medal? Anything I had? The magazine was going with the story as a major feature. I was surprised at her reaction but I was to be absolutely astonished when the article came out. Letters and phone calls from parents all over the country, even in England, came in a rush. They were inspired, touched in a manner most unexpected. They called me just to hear my voice and tell me how proud my little story made them and, in a couple of instances, begged me to speak to their children. It was suggested that I should write a book on our adventures as rocket-builders. I agreed, thinking it would be simple. We were kids of the late 1950's. We were stuck in a coal camp and we were enthralled by the space race. Of course we built rockets. Of course, we kept building them even when they blew up. Of course, we kept working and learning until we had designed sophisticated rocket engines, capable of flying for miles into the sky. Of course, we had won the Gold and Silver Award at the National Science Fair, 1960. And then there was also something about John Kennedy being there with us... Didn't we, I realized, tell him while he was still a Senator that if he ever got to be President he should take the country to the Moon? Maybe the story wasn't so simple, after all. Something had happened once in my life, something so very special that 35 years after it had been done, and I had nearly forgotten it, it had been brought back to me to relive. I sat down and began to write. I wrote of the boys. I wrote of our rockets. I remembered the first one, and the next, and the next. And as I wrote, it was as if there were others there whispering to me, just shushes of conversation coming as if behind a thick curtain. Don't forget us, they said. And there was one. He wasn't whispering but he was there. Every time I tried to turn away from him in the book, he moved like a phantom to stay in my view. My dad. I wrote, and as I wrote, the little town of Coalwood came alive again. The miners trudged up the old path to the mine, their lunch pails clunking against their legs, their helmets perched on their heads. Dad was there amongst them, wearing his old snap-brim hat, his cow-hide coat, encouraging them in the day, gathering his foremen to him for their instruction. The people of the town bustled in and out of the company store and gathered on the church steps after Sunday services to gossip. My mother was in her kitchen, in her refuge in front of the big painted picture of the beach and the ocean. Her pet squirrel was there, giggling because he'd just eaten the family Bible. My dog waited in my basement laboratory, his stubby tail wagging at the sight of me as I picked up and inspected the implements of my chosen trade, the high school rocket builder - the potassium nitrate and sugar, the zinc dust and sulfur, the moonshine we used as a propellant binder. In my room, there was my old desk and the book our Miss Riley had given us, the one with all the answers written in a mathematical script no one believed we could learn but we had, against all odds. I looked and my wonderful little cat still slept on my pillow on the bed beneath the window from which I could see the mine and the tiny machine shop where the kindly machinist had built our first rocket. The church bell was ringing as once more we boys stood on the roof of the old Club House and peered through the telescope a junior engineer had loaned us, to see once more the bands of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the craters of the Moon. The old high school was there, the halls ringing with the excitement of youth, the classrooms echoing with our lessons, the awareness slowly dawning on us that we were the designated refugees of our town and our school - that we were being prepared to leave and never return. Everything and everyone was still there, all in their places, defining the path, urging me along it, to where my dad waited. It was on a hot, black slack dump we called Cape Coalwood, our firing range, a place my dad had been forced by the people of Coalwood to give to us. All the rockets, the ones that blew up and the ones that flew were launched again. All the failures, all the successes, all had to be experienced. When I at last reached our final rocket, he was standing there, looking up at it as it flew out of sight. But the boy that was once me wasn't looking at the rocket. He was looking at his father. The father was saying something and I strained to hear what it was, difficult because of the cheering of the town in the background, and the muffling of the decades that had passed. Glorious! Glorious! Oh, has there ever been such a glorious day! I watched the boy and I knew he was waiting hopefully for the father to turn to him and put his arm around him. But it didn't happen. Instead, the father began to cough the wracking cough of the miner and it was the son - me - who reached out. And he had let me. Oh, has there ever been such a glorious day! Just that one time, that one time... but all that was needed. To recreate the days of the Rocket Boys turned out to be one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I reached as deeply as ever I could into my soul to bring them all back, all the miners and miner's wives and teachers and preachers and each of the boys, because it took them all, urging me, compelling me, to get me back to that place on that slack dump. It was worth the journey, at least to me. When my father died, I was neither needed or wanted. But I know now, and will forever know because I wrote this book, that it was all right. Oh, has there ever been such a glorious day! I think, for a reason that may never become evident, someone needed to remind me of that.
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Summary: October Sky: A Memoir
Review: Rocket Boys This is a book which was inspired by a boy's desire to please his father. Homer Hickman Junior, referred to as Sonny, grew up in Coalwood, a mining town in West Virginia. Sonny's mother knew he was special; she encouraged him regardless of the upsets, the destruction, or his fathers reluctance from him to go on. Spanning his years in high school, this memoir evokes encouragement, disappointment, and sheer ecstasy. To see the blossoming of a "geeky" child into a man revered in Coalwood and all through out society should be an inspiration to us all. All of his efforts were concentrated on a single person, his father, to gain his full support. Rocket Boys is a book which is impossible to put down, looming in the back of your head until you finish. A magnificent read. Attending high school and being in those formative years gave me a chance to reflect on what the message might be. Every nook and cranny of the book is something a person can relate to, a well thought out memoir
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Summary: Ocktober Sky
Review: Homer Hickam, Jr.'s memoir, October Sky, is a compelling story of how one child, with the right encouragement, can fulfill a dream that can ultimately take him beyond the limitations of his situation. On October 5 1957, the date that Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, Homer "Sonny" Hickam, a fourteen year old living in Coalwood, West Virginia, began to nurture his own thoughts of designing and launching rockets into outer space. His lofty dream, inspired by rocket scientist Werner von Braun, would ultimately launch Homer beyond the limitations of a pre determined future in the coal pits of his small mining town, and into NASA and a fulfilling career as a rocket scientist.
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. This effort climaxes in the following passage.
"Tag opened a path through the crowd, and there stood Dad in his work clothes. Roy Lee went after him, escorted him out on the slack. I heard Roy Lee say, "Come and help Hickam." "You don't need my help," Dad said. "I just came to watch." All the boys protested. "No sir, you can help all you want." "Whatever you want to do, sir, you go ahead and do it." I stood up, brushing the slack off my jeans. "A rocket won't fly unless somebody lights the fuse," I said. "Come on." Dad entered the blockhouse, and I directed him to the firing panel after checking the connections. "This one's yours, Dad, if you want it." There was no mistaking the pure delight I saw spread across his face as he knelt in front of the panel. Roy Lee called from the back door. "Whenever you're ready," he said. I counted down to zero and dad turned the switch."
Hickam writes about his determination to break the generational barriers that surround him in an emotional and inspiring fashion. His depiction of the hurdles the boys overcame in order to enter and ultimately win the National Science Fair in 1960 is both humorous and touching. The trials and tribulations of working towards building the perfect rocket are intertwined with the challenges of coming of age.
October Sky is a story of a young boy looking for a life beyond what his community can provide. It is written with vivid detail and a historical accuracy that will capture the most discerning reader. In a story telling manner, rich in language, Hickam has written a masterpiece of hope, love and accomplishment.
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