Rocket Boys

Previously published in paperback as October Sky.Three years in the life of Homer ‘Sonny’ Hickam, from the moment he sees the Sputnik satellite overhead in West Virginia to his successful launch of a prizewinning rocket.In 1957, Coalwood, West Virginia, was a town the post-war boom never quite reached, and dominated by the black steel towers of the mine. For fourteen-year-old Homer ‘Sonny’ Hickam there are only two routes in life: a college football scholarship, or a life underground. But from the moment the town turns out to watch the world’s first space satellite, Sputnik, as it passes overhead, Sonny and his friends embark on a mission of their own – to form the Big Cr…