Rocket Boys: A Memoir by Homer Hickam (English) Paperback Book

Description: Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam With the grace of a natural storyteller, Homer Hickam looks back after a distinguished NASA career to tell his own true story of growing up in a dying coal town and of how, against the odds, he made his dreams of launching rockets into outer space come true. 8-page photo insert. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description #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 mines 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 mothers love and a fathers fears, and of growing up and getting out. Author Biography Homer Hickam was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. The author of Torpedo Junction (a Military History Book-of-the-Month Club selection) as well as numerous articles for such publications as Air & Space/Smithsonian and American History Illustrated, he is a NASA payload training manager for the International Space Station program and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Review "A thoroughly charming memoir...[an] eloquent evocation of a lost time and place. . . . Mr. Hickam builds a story of overcoming obstacles worthy of Frank Capra, especially in its sweetness and honest sentimentality."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times"[Hickam] is a very adept storyteller--.--.--.--Its 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 training astronauts for space walks, that made all the difference."—The New York Times Book Review"Hickam has a great story to tell. . . . Rocket Boys will certainly strike a nostalgic chord in anyone who grew up during the early days of the space race, but its appeal goes beyond that. . . . Hickams recollections of small-town America in the last years of small-town America are so cinematic that even those of us who didnt grow up there might imagine we did."—The Philadelphia Inquirer"A stirring tale that offers something unusual these days . . . 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"Unforgettable . . . Unlike so many memoirs, this book brings to life more than one mans experiences. It brings to life the lost town of Coalwood, W.Va."—USA Today Review Quote "A thoroughly charming memoir...[an] eloquent evocation of a lost time and place. . . . Mr. Hickam builds a story of overcoming obstacles worthy of Frank Capra, especially in its sweetness and honest sentimentality." --Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times "[Hickam] is a very adept storyteller--.--.--.--Its 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 training astronauts for space walks, that made all the difference." --The New York Times Book Review "Hickam has a great story to tell. . . . Rocket Boys will certainly strike a nostalgic chord in anyone who grew up during the early days of the space race, but its appeal goes beyond that. . . . Hickams recollections of small-town America in the last years of small-town America are so cinematic that even those of us who didnt grow up there might imagine we did." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "A stirring tale that offers something unusual these days . . . 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 "Unforgettable . . . Unlike so many memoirs, this book brings to life more than one mans experiences. It brings to life the lost town of Coalwood, W.Va." --USA Today A National Book Critics Circle nominee, and a Featured Alternate of the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club Look for Homer H. Hickam, Jr.s acclaimed novel Back to the Moon: "Wonderful...the action is nonstop." --The Washington Post Book World "Escalating tension, danger and excitement." --The New York Times Book Review "[Hickam] is a very adept storyteller--.--.--.--Its 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 training astronauts for space walks, that made all the difference."--The New York Times Book Review "Hickam has a great story to tell.--.--.--.--ROCKET BOYS will certainly strike a nostalgic chord in anyone who grew up during the early days of the space race, but its appeal goes beyond that.--.--.--.--Hickams recollections of small-town America in the last years of small-town America are so cinematic that even those of us who didnt grow up there might imagine we did." Description for Reading Group Guide This Readers Group Guide for Homer Hickams Rocket Boys is designed to stimulate discussion and enhance the readers appreciation of this exceptional book. Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide 1. As you read this memoir, did you begin to feel as if you knew the people involved? Did you like them? Do you think youd have been happy to live in Coalwood in the late 1950s? If you had, what position in it would you have wanted? Coal miner? Foreman? Teacher? Housewife? Preacher? Doctor? Rocket Boy or Girl? Football Star? 2. Was this memoir similar in its construction with others that youve read? What do you think of the memoir genre? Do you think it might be difficult to write a memoir that is interesting to readers? 3. How would you describe this book? Would you call is a mans book or a womans book? Were you fearful it might be too technical? Is it just a story of a boy with a dream or the story of a small mining town? Or is it something grander and deeper? 4. Do you think Homer Senior and Elsie love each other? What is the principle cause of their conflicts? What is the importance of the mural Elsie is painting in the kitchen? Why is Homer Junior called "Sonny" in the book? Why did his teachers insist on calling him by that nickname rather than the one his mother wanted? 5. How would you describe Sonnys father? Why does Homer Senior take Sonny into the mine, risking Elsies wrath? Why does he arrange for rocket materials when he seems so antagonistic to the rocket building? How does the conflict between his mom and dad motivate Sonny? Why was Geneva Eggers so important in Sonnys understanding of his father? 6. In the first paragraph of the book, Homer writes that his hometown was "at war with itself over its children." What does this mean? 7. Nearly all the women in Coalwood are shown to be strong women, a trait they must have to say goodbye daily to their husbands and sons who work in the dangerous mine and may not return that night. Although most of the women of Coalwood make the best of their lot, they want a better life for their children. How can they help this to happen? Are they feminists before the term existed? How about the teachers called "The Great Six?" Whats their role in Coalwood? What is your opinion of Elsie, Sonnys mother? Is she too harsh with her husband in her attempt to better her life and that of her sons? And Miss Riley? What did it say about her when she stood up for the Rocket Boys against the feared principal, Mr. Turner? 8. Does the book tell a universal story? Could it be set in other times or is it specific to Coalwood and West Virginia in the late 50s? The book has been translated into eight languages and people from all over the world say Homer "told their story," yet they have never held a rocket or even seen a coal mine! The book is dedicated "To Mom and Dad and the people of Coalwood." Why do you think Homer made that dedication? 9. Many schools from fifth grade to college are studying Rocket Boys/October Sky in their classrooms, including English, math, and science classes. That makes it a pretty unique book! This is an adult book, but it is told from a young mans point of view. Why do you think teachers are picking this book to study and why are they writing Homer that they think it was their most popular class read ever, sparking the most thoughtful discussion? (See the Web sites Teachers button and the letters from them for many examples.) 10. This story is also about the rewards and costs of nonconformity. Who conforms, who doesnt and what are the consequences of their actions? Is that a problem today and can this story help those who tend to go against the expected norms? How was Quentin a nonconformist? How about the other boys? 11. In Chapter 22, Mr. Turner, the Big Creek High School principal, wryly tells Sonny, "In the queer mass of human destiny, the determining factor has always been luck." But in Chapter 26, Homer writes, "Theres a plan. If you are willing to fight hard enough, you can make it detour for a while, but youre still going to end up where God wants you to be." Are these quotations about human fate really in conflict with each other? How do they apply to the story? 12. Rocket Boys/October Sky is an excellent way to think about and discuss the many steps it takes to achieve a goal. Sonnys idea of building rockets starts as simply a dream, but then he brings in the other boys and even approaches Quentin, the school outcast. The Rocket Boys first look upon their rocket-building as interesting and fun but then it becomes a challenge to defy expectations. Only much later does the idea of entering the science fairs occur to them. Discuss the importance of incremental steps in your life. Do you believe an incremental approach has validity in all walks of life, academic and otherwise? Why does Quentin believe in the necessity of obtaining what he calls a "body of knowledge?" 13. Miss Riley, the physics teacher, seems to regard education as a challenge and adventure. Sonny rises to meet the formidable task she sets before him. He writes, "I had discovered that learning something, no matter how complex, wasnt hard when I had a reason to want to know it"(p. 168). That challenge is taken to the next level by Miss Riley when she gives him the book Principles of Guided Missile Design , saying, "All Ive done is give you a book. You have to have the courage to learn whats inside it"(p. 232). Discuss Miss Rileys motivational techniques. 14. When Sonny thinks of giving up rocketry altogether, Miss Riley tells him: "Youve got to put all your hurt and anger aside so that you can do your job ... Your job, Sonny, is to build your rockets." When Sonny asks why thats so important, she answers, "If for no other reason, because it honors you and this school"(p. 296). Its clear that she means it also honors Coalwood. Discuss the concept of civic pride. How do the Rocket Boys help the town? Why are they celebrated in the newspapers? In church? In the Big Store? By both sides of the unionization conflict? Why do so many attend their rocket launches? Is it just because the football team is on year-long suspension? 15. Discuss the motivational aspects contained within this story. How did Sputnik motivate Sonny? Is his mother trying to be motivational after he blows up her rose garden fence with his first rocket? ("I believe you can build a rocket. [Your father] doesnt. I want you to show him Im right"(p. 52).) Early in his career as a rocket builder, Rocket Boy ODell says, "A rocket wont fly unless someone lights the fuse"(p. 105). How important is it to find motivation in all our endeavors? Would the boys have gotten to the science fair without being motivated by something larger than themselves? 16. The final chapter in the book (before the epilogue) finishes with the launch of the last rocket of the Big Creek Missile Agency. Homer Senior is invited to launch this rocket. Why do you think this invitation was made? Why do you think he accepted? Excerpt from Book Coalwood Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didnt know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didnt know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didnt know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine. Coalwood, West Virginia, where I grew up, was built for the purpose of extracting the millions of tons of rich, bituminous coal that lay beneath it. In 1957, when I was fourteen years old and first began to build my rockets, there were nearly two thousand people living in Coalwood. My father, Homer Hickam, was the mine superintendent, and our house was situated just a few hundred yards from the mines entrance, a vertical shaft eight hundred feet deep. From the window of my bedroom, I could see the black steel tower that sat over the shaft and the comings and goings of the men who worked at the mine. Another shaft, with railroad tracks leading up to it, was used to bring out the coal. The structure for lifting, sorting, and dumping the coal was called the tipple. Every weekday, and even on Saturday when times were good, I could watch the black coal cars rolling beneath the tipple to receive their massive loads and then smoke-spouting locomotives straining to pull them away. All through the day, the heavy thump of the locomotives steam pistons thundered down our narrow valleys, the town shaking to the crescendo of grinding steel as the great trains accelerated. Clouds of coal dust rose from the open cars, invading everything, seeping through windows and creeping under doors. Throughout my childhood, when I raised my blanket in the morning, I saw a black, sparkling powder float off it. My socks were always black with coal dirt when I took my shoes off at night. Our house, like every house in Coalwood, was company-owned. The company charged a small monthly rent, automatically deducted from the miners pay. Some of the houses were tiny and single-storied, with only one or two bedrooms. Others were big two-story duplexes, built as boardinghouses for bachelor miners in the booming 1920s and later sectioned off as individual-family dwellings during the Depression. Every five years, all the houses in Coalwood were painted a company white, which the blowing coal soon tinged gray. Usually in the spring, each family took it upon themselves to scrub the exterior of their house with hoses and brushes. Each house in Coalwood had a fenced-off square of yard. My mother, having a larger yard than most to work with, planted a rose garden. She hauled in dirt from the mountains by the sackful, slung over her shoulder, and fertilized, watered, and manicured each bush with exceeding care. During the spring and summer, she was rewarded with bushes filled with great blood-red blossoms as well as dainty pink and yellow buds, spatters of brave color against the dense green of the heavy forests that surrounded us and the gloom of the black and gray mine just up the road. Our house was on a corner where the state highway turned east toward the mine. A company-paved road went the other way to the center of town. Main Street, as it was called, ran down a valley so narrow in places that a boy with a good arm could throw a rock from one side of it to the other. Every day for the three years before I went to high school, I got on my bicycle in the morning with a big white canvas bag strapped over my shoulder and delivered the Bluefield Daily Telegraph down this valley, pedaling past the Coalwood School and the rows of houses that were set along a little creek and up on the sides of the facing mountains. A mile down Main was a large hollow in the mountains, formed where two creeks intersected. Here were the company offices and also the company church, a company hotel called the Club House, the post office building, which also housed the company doctor and the company dentist, and the main company store (which everybody called the Big Store). On an overlooking hill was the turreted mansion occupied by the company general superintendent, a man sent down by our owners in Ohio to keep an eye on their assets. Main Street continued westward between two mountains, leading to clusters of miners houses we called Middletown and Frog Level. Two forks led up mountain hollows to the "colored" camps of Mudhole and Snakeroot. There the pavement ended, and rutted dirt roads began. At the entrance to Mudhole was a tiny wooden church presided over by the Reverend "Little" Richard. He was dubbed "Little" because of his resemblance to the soul singer. Nobody up Mudhole Hollow subscribed to the paper, but whenever I had an extra one, I always left it at the little church, and over the years, the Reverend Richard and I became friends. I loved it when he had a moment to come out on the church porch and tell me a quick Bible story while I listened, astride my bike, fascinated by his sonorous voice. I especially admired his description of Daniel in the lions den. When he acted out with bug-eyed astonishment the moment Daniels captors looked down and saw their prisoner lounging around in the pit with his arm around the head of a big lion, I laughed appreciatively. "That Daniel, he knew the Lord," the Reverend summed up with a chuckle while I continued to giggle, "and it made him brave. How about you, Sonny? Do you know the Lord?" I had to admit I wasnt certain about that, but the Reverend said it was all right. "God looks after fools and drunks," he said with a big grin that showed off his gold front tooth, "and I guess hell look after you too, Sonny Hickam." Many a time in the days to come, when I was in trouble, I would think of Reverend Richard and his belief in Gods sense of humor and His fondness for neer-do-wells. It didnt make me as brave as old Daniel, but it always gave me at least a little hope the Lord would let me scrape by. The company church, the one most of the white people in town went to, was set down on a little grassy knob. In the late 1950s, it came to be presided over by a company employee, Reverend Josiah Lanier, who also happened to be a Methodist. The denomination of the preacher the company hired automatically became ours too. Before we became Methodists, I remember being a Baptist and, once for a year, some kind of Pentecostal. The Pentecostal preacher scared the women, hurling fire and brimstone and warnings of death from his pulpit. When his contract expired, we got Reverend Lanier. I was proud to live in Coalwood. According to the West Virginia history books, no one had ever lived in the valleys and hills of McDowell County before we came to dig out the coal. Up until the early nineteenth century, Cherokee tribes occasionally hunted in the area, but found the terrain otherwise too rugged and uninviting. Once, when I was eight years old, I found a stone arrowhead embedded in the stump of an ancient oak tree up on the mountain behind my house. My mother said a deer must have been lucky some long ago day. I was so inspired by my find that I invented an Indian tribe, the Coalhicans, and convinced the boys I played with--Roy Lee, ODell, Tony, and Sherman--that it had really existed. They joined me in streaking our faces with berry juice and sticking chicken feathers in our hair. For days afterward, our little tribe of savages formed raiding parties and conducted massacres throughout Coalwood. We surrounded the Club House and, with birch-branch bows and invisible arrows, picked off the single miners who lived there as they came in from work. To indulge us, some of them even fell down and writhed convincingly on the Club Houses vast, manicured lawn. When we set up an ambush at the tipple gate, the miners going on shift got into the spirit of things, whooping and returning our imaginary fire. My father observed this from his office by the tipple and came out to restore order. Although the Coalhicans escaped into the hills, their chief was reminded at the supper table that night that the mine was for work, not play. When we ambushed some older boys--my brother, Jim, among them--who were playing cowboys up in the mountains, a great mock battle ensued until Tony, up in a tree for a better line of sight, stepped on a rotted branch and fell and broke his arm. I organized the construction of a litter out of branches, and we bore the great warrior home. The company doctor, "Doc" Lassiter, drove to Tonys house in his ancient Packard and came inside. nb Details ISBN0385333218 Short Title ROCKET BOYS Pages 384 Language English ISBN-10 0385333218 ISBN-13 9780385333214 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 629.1092273 Illustrations Yes Year 2000 Subtitle A Memoir Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Birth 1943 Qualifications Jr. Audience Age 14-18 Residence Huntsville, AL, US Series Coalwood DOI 10.1604/9780385333214 Series Number 1 AU Release Date 2000-01-11 NZ Release Date 2000-01-11 US Release Date 2000-01-11 UK Release Date 2000-01-11 Author Homer Hickam Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2000-01-11 Imprint Delta Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:7214310;

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