October Sky
Homer HickamBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
The true story, originally published as Rocket Boys, that inspired the Universal Pictures film.
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 mine’s 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 tarry skies with their flaming projectiles and dreams of glory, Coalwood, and the Hickams, would never be the same.
Looking back after a distinguished NASA career, Hickam shares the story of his youth in a coal mining town.
Synopsis
Looking back after a distinguished NASA career, Hickam shares the story of his youth in a coal mining town.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
A story of overcoming obstacles worthy of Frank Capra. . . .Thoroughly charming. . .an eloquent evocation of a lost time and place. . .A touching memoir which makes a dark and threatening place seem as golden as the dawn of a promising new life.
-- The New York Times
Editorials
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
A story of overcoming obstacles worthy of Frank Capra. . . .Thoroughly charming. . .an eloquent evocation of a lost time and place. . .A touching memoir which makes a dark and threatening place seem as golden as the dawn of a promising new life.-- The New York Times
James R. Gaines
. . .[W]hatever its flaws, it's a good bet this is the story as he told it to himself. It is a lovely one, and in the career of Homer H. Hickam Jr., who prevailed over the facts of his life to become a NASA engineer. . .that made all the difference.-- The New York Times Book Review
From The Critics
This nostalgic memoir chronicles the rocket launching adventures of Homer Hickam and his friends during their teenage years in Coalwood, West Virginia, in the 1950s. Inspired by the historic Soviet Sputnik launch in 1957, Hickam and his self-proclaimed Big Creek Missile Agency decided to launch a rocket into space. Unbeknowst to them, this seemingly harmless pursuit changes a destiny bound for a life of laboring in Coalwood's bituminous coal mines. Hickam would, in fact, grow up to be a pioneering NASA engineer at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Hickam's plain-spoken narrative captures the wide-eyed innocence of the era and draws the reader into a world of boyhood friendships, school-girl crushes and adolescent dreams. Coalwood, an impoverished small town where a promising future consisted of issuing a young boy a mining hat upon high-school graduation, however, is a less than idyllic place for dreams. Instead it serves as a reminder of the author's youthful yearning for a brighter future. In Hickam's teenage world, characters are observed through idle talk or the occasional encounter, emotions are distant curiosities, and glimpses of life in the 1950s are only frames of reference. This is neither a famous astronaut's autobiography nor a dramatic portrayal of life in Cold War America. It's simply a true-life adventure that tickles the imagination while it evokes a more idealistic time.— William Travis