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| | | ADULT | Home » » October Sky (The Coalwood Series #1) | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | 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.
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Homer Hickam | | Mass Market Paperback:
| 448 pages | | Publisher:
| Dell | | Publication Date:
| February 16, 1999 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0440235502 | | Package Length:
| 6.8 inches | | Package Width:
| 4.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.5 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 559 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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Very Good BookJul 05, 2010
This Book is awesome. It is an inspiring true story of how a young man turned his childhood dream or being involve in space exploration into a reality and the many trials and tribulations he encountered on his journey from rural, poor coal mining region of West Virginia to one of NASA's top rocketry experts. An excellent read for young people and old for it is never to late to follow ones dreams.
An inspiring storyJun 26, 2010
As a casual reader I found this book fascinating. The events in the book take place within a year of my birth and remind me how different life was just 50 years ago. You realise just how much the aspirations of the young generation have changed. The book gave also an interesting insight into community life in an industry that undoubtedly was mirrored in many other places as coal mining gave way to other energy sources. I thoroughly recommend this book.
Follow Your Dreams to the Stars - The Power of Curiosity and EducationJun 14, 2010
Rocket Boys, also released in paperback as October Sky (renamed for the fine movie of the same name) is the incredibly inspiring true story of Homer Hickam, who, along with his friends in the late 1950's, grew up in the small mining town of Coalwood West Virginia. Inspired by the launch of Sputnik, which flies directly above their isolated mountain community one night, Hickam forms the Big Creek Missle Agency with his friends and proceeds to experiment with and build model rockets from bits and pieces they find around the local coal mines. Their burning curiosities overcome the small-mindedness of people who tell them their rockets won't work, lack of information, limited supplies, mine strikes and violence which threaten the community as a whole, and more. Thanks to the help of a brilliant teacher who sees the potential in these young men, they overcome all adversities to compete in the National Science Fair. This is truly an amazing story.
I grew up in Southern West Virginia about an hour away from Coalwood, and being familiar with the numerous small coal mining towns dotting the region makes the story all the more inspiring. Against all odds the boys of the Big Creek Missle Agency use education, much of it self-taught and hard-won, to escape the coal fields and go to college. Author Homer Hickam even fulfills a lifelong dream and eventually lands a job working for NASA itself.
Rocket Boys proves that through education, hard work and a never-ending curiosity, you too can make your dreams come true. Highly recommended.
hard times overcomeJun 12, 2010
I had read October Sky, but Rocket Boys gives photographs which complement the excellent story of how boys in impossible surroundings decided to settle for the best.
Want to joint BCMAJun 06, 2010
It's a wonderful story about how a boy becomes a man and how he fights for his dreams in a miners town that has no future.
I loved reading this book and it has a very special ending. It's truly inspiring so I recommended to everybody but in special to that people that are aerospace enthusiast!
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