Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky) is the first memoir in a series of three, by Homer Hickam, Jr. It is a story of growing up in a mining town, and a boy's pursuit of amateur rocketry 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 Stone (2002).
Rocket Boys was made into a film in 1999, titled October Sky (an anagram of "Rocket Boys"). The book was then re-published as October Sky shortly afterwards.
Read more about Rocket Boys: Plot Summary, Characters
Famous quotes containing the words rocket and/or boys:
“A rocket is a reed that thinks brilliantly.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“In time, after a dozen years of centering their lives around the games boys play with one another, the boys’ bodies change and that changes everything else. But the memories are not erased of that safest time in the lives of men, when their prime concern was playing games with guys who just wanted to be their friendly competitors. Life never again gets so simple.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)