An analysis of the triumphant story of homer hickam jr in rocket boys by homer hickam jr

It received so much acclaim and interest, he was asked to write a book detailing the whole story. The title of the paperback released at the same time was changed to the movie title, which is an ANAGRAM of Rocket Boys take the letters of rocket boys and move them around to spell october sky! Rocket Boys Inwhile I was on vacation in the Caribbean, my father died. My mother had made no attempt to contact me.

A Memoir by Homer Hickam. Homer "Sonny" Hickham Jr. The second son of the coal mine superintendent Homer Hickham and his wife Elsie, Sonny, his parents and his brother, Bill, live a few hundred yards from the mine entrance. The kids from Coalwood grow up to enter the military or be miners.

Sonny has no inspiration for a future outside of his home town until his life is changed in Fascination with stories of the desperate race by American scientists and engineers at Cape Canaveral, including rocket scientist Dr.

Wernher von Braun, to catch up with the Russians, and an article on rocket mechanics in the November issue of Life Magazine inspires Sonny to build his own rocket.

They take the explosive powder from twelve cherry bombs and accidentally blow up Mrs.

Free essay on "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

His father forbids him to build more rockets. His mother, who desperately wants Sonny to find a future outside of Coalwood, tells him that Coalwood is a dying town and asks him if he thinks he can build a real rocket. She makes it clear to Sonny that she believes he can build a real rocket, even though his father does not.

She asks Sonny to prove his father wrong. She tells him she has some money to put him through college but he has to do what he can to find a way to get out of Coalwood. He tries to understand how the town can be dying.

Sonny continues building rockets with the help of new rocket boy Quentin and his friends. Their first real rocket, Auk 1, flies six feet. Their rockets and the fuel mixtures continue to improve as do their results.

The young men enter high school and keep building and flying rockets with the help of townsfolk who believe in them, including miners, teachers, friends and family members. A teacher, Miss Riley, encourages the boys to enter a rocketry exhibit at the county and state science fairs. Sonny does so and wins.

He then heads to the National Science fair and receives a beautiful gold and silver metal. The boys launch the last of their rockets in a celebration with the entire town.Homer H. Hickam, Jr. | LibraryThing Works by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.: Rocket Boys, The Coalwood Way, Back to the Moon: A Novel, Sky of Stone: A Memoir, The Keeper's Son, Torpedo Junction, The Ambassador's Back to the Moon Summary and Analysis - Free Book Find all available study guides and summaries for Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam.

If there is a. The young narrator and protagonist of Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam, Jr. is a curious, adventurous, and ambitious teenager from the town of Coalwood, West Virginia. During the course of the book, Homer.

Homer Hadley Hickam Jr.

(born February 19, ) is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer who trained the first Japanese astronauts. His memoir Rocket Boys (also published as October Sky) was a New York Times Best Seller and was the basis for the film October Sky. In his novel Rocket Boys, Homer H.

Hickam Jr. tells his inspiring childhood story. His story takes place in the late ’s when Russia launched into space Sputnik, the first satellite. Boys around America, like Homer, were immediately motivated to, . The young narrator and protagonist of Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam, Jr.

is a curious, adventurous, and ambitious teenager from the town of Coalwood, West Virginia. During the course of the book, Homer, inspired by the onset of the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, endeavors to build rockets like his hero, Dr.

.

About Rocket Boys. The true story, originally published as Rocket Boys, that inspired the Universal Pictures film.

It was , 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.