 It would be a mistake to think of Rocket Boys as a simple story about a science fair project. Science fair, maybe, but simple? Don’t believe it for a minute. Like the veins of coal that snake through the ground beneath the West Virginia mountains, this story is layered and deep.
Raised in the small mining town of Coalwood, author Homer Hickam guides us through a childhood of contrasts. From sporting chicken feathers in his hair and pretending to be a Coalhican Indian with boyhood buddies, to real battles with Union sons because Dad was a Company man, a clear pattern of love-hate relationships emerges. Nowhere is the emotional tug-of-war more heartfelt than in the conflicts at home. Homer Sr. is passionately (perhaps obsessively) loyal to the mine, while Mrs. Hickam despises everything about it.
By the time Homer Jr. boards the bus for his consolidated high school, the restless tension seems as pervasive as the sparkling black dust that blankets the town. We see an adolescent wishing to secure a higher position in his social pecking order, unable to please his father and suffering a constant barrage of verbal abuse from an older brother, the high school football star. Homer pines for the attention of a beautiful classmate one town over, only to discover that his dreaded brother dates her first. On the other hand, while Homer downplays his near-fatal accident, it is brother Jim who waits in Homer’s room for the “idiot sister” (Homer) to regain consciousness.
Did I mention the rocket part? One chilly October night in 1957 a Russian-made satellite blinks across the Coalwood sky. Like the one that hurled Sputnik into orbit, rockets will propel Homer to great heights. Standing alone in his backyard long after the craft has passed, an awed and inspired Homer resolves to join the space race. Launching a club called the Big Creek Missile Agency, he recruits four friends to help build rockets. The rocket boys pin their hopes of “getting out of Coalwood” to science fair notoriety yet name their missiles after a prehistoric bird that could not fly. Early failures bring jeers and insults. The boys are an embarrassment. It’s too dangerous. They are told to stop—repeatedly. But rockets represent the future, change; and, change is inevitable. They cannot stop. Who will help them? Who in this town can see that change will come to Coalwood? Where are the mentors and how do the outcasts become the celebrated heroes of the town? That’s the beauty of this intricate story. You may already know the ending. Getting there is more than half the fun; it’s all the fun.
Having a Blast…@ Your Library
P.S.
For background information on Homer's hobby try the History of Spaceflight: Reaching for the Stars (on VHS) or the recently published Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael J. Neufeld.
October Sky is the film version of Rocket Boys. A movie/book comparison is discussed at www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Movies/9902/18/review.octobersky/index.html.
If you like coming-of-age-in-the-50s stories, these are closer to home: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson (Des Moines) and Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood by Susan Allen Toth (Ames).
To sample Homer’s fictional storytelling check out Back to the Moon.
High school mentoring is the theme in Mr. Holland’s Opus, where a music teacher’s passion for his work profoundly affects a generation of students.
January 29, 2008
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