Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "nostalgic and entertaining memoir" (People) about a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space--the inspiration for the film October Sky

"A message of hope in an age of cynicism. . . . Perhaps we all have something to learn from a half-dozen boys who dared to reject all limitations . . . and resolved to send dreams roaring to the sky."--The San Diego Union-Tribune

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.

With the grace of a natural storyteller, NASA engineer Homer Hickam paints a warm, vivid portrait of the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evoking a time of innocence and promise, when anything was possible. Lush and lyrical, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir: A powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the end of the 1950s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, and of growing up and getting out.

Homer Hickam was born and raised in the West Virginia town of Coalwood. He is a retired NASA engineer, a dive teacher, and a consultant on a variety of aerospace projects. He is the author of Torpedo Junction, Return to the Moon, and the bestselling Rocket Boys (now titled October Sky).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780385333214
ISBN 10	0385333218
Title	Rocket Boys
Author	Homer Hickam
Series	Coalwood
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2000-01-11
Number of pages	384
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.