Rocket Boys is the first
memoirA memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
in a series of three, by
Homer Hickam, Jr.Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film October Sky...
It is a story of growing up in a mining town, and a boy's pursuit of
amateur rocketryAmateur rocketry, sometimes known as amateur experimental rocketry or experimental rocketry is a hobby in which participants experiment with fuels and make their own rocket motors, launching a wide variety of types and sizes of rockets...
in a coal mining town. It won the
W.D. Weatherford Award in 1998, the year of its release. Today, it is one of the most often picked community/library reads in the United States. It is also studied in many school systems around the world.
Rocket Boys was followed by
The Coalwood Way (2000) and
Sky of StoneSky of Stone is the third in a trilogy of books by Homer Hickam, Jr. about his hometown of Coalwood, West Virginia that began with Rocket Boys.-Synopsis:In Sky of Stone, Hickam has gone off to college at Virginia Polytechnic Institute...
(2002).
Rocket Boys was made into a film in 1999, titled
October SkyOctober Sky is a 1999 American biographical film directed by Joe Johnston, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper and Laura Dern. It is based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and who...
(an anagram of "Rocket Boys"). The book was then re-published as
October Sky shortly afterwards.
Rocket Boys is now a major theatrical musical headed to New York. It has been presented in workshop with an all-Broadway cast, is currently being produced regionally, and will most likely land on Broadway in 2011.
Plot summary
Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. lived in a small
coal miningThe goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
town in
West VirginiaWest Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
named
CoalwoodCoalwood is an unincorporated coal mining town in McDowell County, West Virginia, USA. As of the 1990 Census, the population was 900. The coal mine in Coalwood reached its peak in the 1960s and finally shut down production on October 1, 1982...
. Sonny, after seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik,
decides to join the American team of
rocketA rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
engineers called the Army Ballistic Missile Agency when he graduates from school. (Note: In the book
Rocket Boys, the main character is always called Sonny. In the movie
October Sky, he is called Homer.) Sonny's older brother, Jim Hickam, excelled at football and expected to get a college football scholarship. Sonny, however, was terrible at sports and had no special skill that would get him "out of Coalwood". Sonny's mother was afraid that he would have to work in the mines after high school.
Sonny's first attempt at rocketry consisted of a flashlight tube and model airplane body as a casing that was fueled by flash powder from old cherry bombs. It exploded violently, thus destroying his mother's fence. After that, Sonny enlisted the help of
Quentin WilsonQuentin Wilson is an American engineer and is one of the original Rocket Boys. His character in the Universal Pictures film "October Sky" was played by Chris Owen...
,
Roy Lee CookeRoy Lee Cooke is an American who was a founding member of the Big Creek Missile Agency and one of the original Rocket Boys. His character in the Universal Pictures film October Sky was played by William Lee Scott...
, Sherman Siers, Jimmy "O'Dell" Carroll, and Billy Rose to help build rockets while forming the BCMA (Big Creek Missile Agency). Their first real rocket, powered by black powder, was named
AukAn auk is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. Auks are superficially similar to penguins due to their black-and-white colours, their upright posture and some of their habits...
1. This an allusion to the
Great AukThe Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, formerly of the genus Alca, was a large, flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus, a group of birds that formerly included one other species of flightless giant auk from the Atlantic Ocean...
, which is a flightless sea bird that became
extinctIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
in the mid-19th century. Auk 1 flew six feet before the solder melted and the nozzle, a washer, separated from the casement which subsequently gave the name of the group and book. They called themselves "Rocket Boys" and called the place they were launching their rockets from "Cape Coalwood", in honor of
Cape CanaveralCape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a headland in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River.It is part of a region known as the...
.
The Rocket Boys enjoyed mixed success during their three year rocket launching campaign (1957 to 1960). They employed several fuel mixtures including
rocket candyRocket candy is a type of rocket propellant for model rockets made with sugar as a fuel, and containing an oxidizer. The propellant can be divided into three groups of components: the fuel, the oxidizer, and the additive. The fuel is a sugar; sucrose is the most commonly used. The most common...
and a mixture called "zincoshine", which was composed of zinc dust and sulfur, along with alcohol made by a local bootlegger as a binder for the mixture. They launched a total of 34 rockets all sequentially numbered Auk I–XXXI. (There were four different Auk XXIIs.)
They also won a
National Science FairA science fair is generally a competition where contestants present their science project results in the form of a report, display board, and models that they have created. Science fairs allow students in grade schools and high schools to compete in science and/or technology activities...
gold medal for their rockets, for their project titled "A Study of Amateur Rocketry Techniques".
Characters
- Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr.
Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film October Sky...
is the main protagonist and narrator of the story. He is 14 years old at the beginning of the story, and serves as the unspoken leader of the Rocket Boys. He is very nearsighted and requires glasses. Jim is his star athlete brother, and Homer Hickam, the mine superintendent, is his dad. Elsie Lavender Hickam is Homer Sr.'s wife and their mom.
- Quentin Wilson
Quentin Wilson is an American engineer and is one of the original Rocket Boys. His character in the Universal Pictures film "October Sky" was played by Chris Owen...
is an intelligent member of the Rocket Boys and the person who does most of the math out of the entire group. Quentin carries around a suitcase stuffed with books wherever he goes and finds excuses to get out of gym class. He is excitable and often confounds the other members and townspeople with his advanced vocabulary when jumpy.
- Jimmy "O'Dell" Carroll is small and excitable, the most emotional member of the group. His father drove the town garbage truck, allowing O'Dell access to many useful items, frequently scrounged to further the group's efforts. He is always scheming ways of making money, from the failed iron scrap attempt—which took an entire summer, yielded a net loss of one dollar, not counting the destruction of borrowed equipment, and almost killed Sonny—to the profitable harvesting of ginseng
Ginseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....
.
- Sherman Siers has a physically weakened left leg as a result of polio, but does not let it slow him down. He is also the most observant and practical member of the team.
- Roy Lee Cooke
Roy Lee Cooke is an American who was a founding member of the Big Creek Missile Agency and one of the original Rocket Boys. His character in the Universal Pictures film October Sky was played by William Lee Scott...
is Sonny's best friend. He teaches Sonny something about girls. In the follow-up memoir titled The Coalwood Way, it is revealed that he is known as The Big Creek Lovemaster. Roy Lee also knows the moonshiner in town, John Eye, who provides the boys with the alcohol needed for their special propellant they call Zincoshine.
- Willie "Billy" Rose is a member of the Rocket Boys who joins the group about a year after it is founded. He has excellent eyesight and can find rockets very well. He is the best runner in the group.
- Miss Riley
Freida Joy Riley was an American science and math teacher. She taught at Big Creek High School in War, West Virginia during the late 1950s and early 1960s while suffering from Hodgkin's disease.-Life:...
is a chemistry and physics teacher at Big Creek High School who inspires the Rocket Boys to compete in the National Science Fair. She gives Sonny a book called Principles of Guided Missile Design that is extremely useful to the Rocket Boys in the future. She also orchestrates the Rocket Boys' entry into the National Science Fair. She is diagnosed with Hodgkin's LymphomaHodgkin's lymphoma, previously known as Hodgkin's disease, is a type of lymphoma, which is a cancer originating from white blood cells called lymphocytes...
shortly before Sonny leaves for the science fair. At first her affliction goes into remission, but later she dies of her disease.
- Jake Mosby is a womanizing alcoholic who helps the BCMA in paying off debts. Jake is a mining engineer. He also introduces them to a writer of a small newspaper, Basil Oglethorpe. He later settles down a bit and starts dating Miss Riley for a period of time, trying to be dependable for her.
- Basil Oglethorpe is the writer of a small newspaper called the McDowell County Banner. He is in charge of the BCMA's publicity.
- Mr. Ferro is in charge of a group of company machinists who help the BCMA build their rockets.
- Mr. Caton is a machinist in Mr. Ferro's team. He is the main builder of the BCMA's rockets.
- Homer Hickam, Sr. is a hard-headed mine foreman in Coalwood and Sonny's father. He takes his job very seriously, going out of his way to help miners in distress. He is almost always at odds with the union leader, John Dubonnet, who dated Elsie when they were all in high school together. Homer Sr. seems to not care about Sonny's affairs as much as he does Jim's; Sonny points this out in the book much to Homer Sr.'s chagrin. He has a spot on his lung that is the common miner's disease, black lung (Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis), but refuses to quit work, although most men who are discovered to have this illness are forced into retirement, but allowed to stay in Coalwood.
- Elsie Hickam is Sonny's mother. She is supportive of Sonny's rocket building, but often finds herself at odds with her husband, Homer Sr., about the rocket building. She often tells Sonny, "Don't blow yourself up." She is consistently working on a mural of Myrtle Beach throughout the memoir.
- Dorothy Plunk is Sonny's dream girl; he even describes her as "God's Perfection" at one point in the memoir. While Sonny spends most of his time infatuated with her, although she still spends time with him, Dorothy only wants a friend relationship and goes out with other boys. For a large section of the book, Sonny ignores her, because she started a relationship with his brother Jim. She was also the valedictorian of Sonny's graduating high school class and took Sonny's spot in a calculus class because her grades were higher.
- Valentine Carmina is an older girl who likes Sonny. Ultimately, she taught him about having sex in the backseat of an old Dodge the same day Dorothy broke his heart.
- Jim Hickam is Sonny's older brother who plays for the school's football team. He dates the girl Sonny is in love with, Dorothy Plunk, but later dumps her like he does with many of his girl friends.
- Mr. Isaac Bykovski is a worker in the mine who helps Sonny with his first rockets. Homer Sr. makes him work in the mine as punishment for helping Sonny. Later, Homer Sr. offers him his job back in the machine shop, but Bykovski does not accept the offer because he made more money in the mine. He is later killed in a mine collapse while operating a loader.
- Geneva Eggers is a middle-aged woman who was rescued as a baby by Homer Hickam Sr. when her house was on fire. The rest of her family were still in the house when it went up in flames but she was the only one whom Homer Sr. saw. Everyone else in her family perished. It is implied that after the fire, she turned to prostitution in order to support herself. During the novel, she invites Sonny into her home when he almost freezes to death on a December night and gives him a new set of clothes. Sonny feels uncomfortable changing in front of her and, sensing the hesitation, she replies, "Oh, come on. You ain't gonna show me nothin' I ain't already seen too many times."