October Sky

Near the end of the story, we learn that Jim Hickam has gone off to college at Virginia Tech on a sports scholarship. He had always been a talented athlete and this scholarship was the best chance...

In the epilogue of his memoir, Homer describes what happened to his friends after high school. Amazingly, all four of the rocket boys went on to attend university, something incredibly rare for...

In a small West Virginia town, four high school boys were inspired to build a rocket after watching Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, shoot across the sky in 1957. With only a book to guide...

Dorothy Plunk of course was the girl that Homer had fallen in love with very early on in his high school career. He studied with her and fell ever more deeply in love with her as time went on but...

Coal mining towns are small and, historically, desperately poor. Yet, mining coal is what the town has, and it holds to it as tightly as possible. It provides sustenance for those who work in the...

As Homer tries to build his prototype rocket, he gives it the nickname Auk 1. This is a humorous nickname in the context of the story, namely because of the boys’ eventual success. He gets Mr....

Although Homer does not start out with a natural proclivity towards math, that does not stop him from pursuing his interest in rockets. Throughout the story, Homer takes various actions to make up...

The boys in October Sky each have their own motives for learning rocket science. Homer Hickam, the story's central character, sees science and rockets as a way to avoid a life working in the coal...

Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. is an intelligent but otherwise unremarkable boy at risk of getting stuck with a bad job in the coal mines of Coalwood, West Virginia. Despite these circumstances, Sonny...

The boys learn how to make rockets by using trial and error. At the time, there are no directions to guide them and no safety manual. The boys do not even have a book until their chemistry teacher...

In designing and building the rockets, both the materials used and the design of the nozzle were significant factors. As with other components, the nozzle's materials had to withstand much greater...

Two major changes that occurred in Sonny's life at the beginning of his junior year at Big Creek High School were that he had to change schools, and that the Russians successfully launched the...

For Christmas in 1958, Sonny receives an autographed photograph of "Dr. Wernher von Braun with a personal note in his own handwriting." Von Braun was a famed rocket scientist who was one of the...

The protagonist of the film is, of course, Homer Hickam, the teenage son of a coal miner who wants to pursue aeronautics, much to the dismay of his traditional father. Homer’s father, John Hickam,...

I am assuming that you are asking about Homer Hickam, Jr., also known as Sonny. Sonny is the leader of the Rocket Boys, a group of friends from the mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia, who join...

Zincoshine was a compound made up by Homer Hickam and his friends when they were designing homemade rockets, and it acted as rocket fuel. Attempting to launch their rockets higher and higher into...

Daisy Mae is Sonny's pet cat. Sonny lets her out of the house one night, hears screeching tires, and later finds out that someone has run over the cat and killed her. Elsie brings the cat's body...

The boys in October Sky proved many things, especially in regards to their own abilities, but there is one instance in particular where they make an especially critical proof. They are barred from...

The football guys vandalize the rocket boys' blockhouse, attacking it and trying to tear it apart, "board by board, using tire irons." Even though the rocket boys know that they are no match for...

October Sky is a film based on the book Rocket Boys that chronicles the childhood and teen years of Homer Hickam, who grew up in a rural West Virginia town where education beyond secondary school...

It is clear that Homer Senior and Elsie enjoy a somewhat conflicting marriage. Elsie obviously dislikes her husband's work and the way that this forces her to live in Coalwood and to raise her two...

Hello! You asked about the novel 'October Sky' by Homer Hickam. Jake does become important to the BCMA as the chapter on Jake Mosby states. As a young engineer sent down to Coalwood by the Ohio...

If I remember correctly, I don't have the book here with me, Miss Riley, one of Sonny's teachers gave him a book on building rockets for his birthday.

Homer's dad embracing his son and his dreams represented the final act that had proven Homer's validity. Winning the Science Fair competition, meeting his inspiration, proving to everyone in the...

In the book October Sky, one of the main reasons for tension in the Hickham family was that they, along with other families in their coal mining town, were very dependent on the coal mines for...

The original question had to be edited. Coalwood is highly significant to the development of the narrative. Coalwood is the small town prototype in America of the 1950s. Either one plays...

Mr. Bykovski tells Homer that although Wernher von Braun "helped monsters, and for that he should be blamed," but he also points out that "there are concepts of forgiveness and redemption." In his...

The conversation that occurs between Sonny and his Dad after Bykovski helps him with his rockets serves to foreshadow disaster for Mr. Bykovski, and also galvanizes Sonny to continue with his...

The scientific method includes asking a question, formulating a hypothesis that could answer it, deciding on and gathering evidence that would prove or disprove the hypothesis, evaluating if and...

Homer Hickam's characteristic that helps him the most is his determination. By all accounts, Homer, or "Sonny's," life seems to be laid out before him. His father expects him to grow into a...

They actually decided on moonshine as the best binder, since it was the best source of pure alcohol around. In order to get it, they had to head out to John Eye Blevin's place up in the hills....

For the characters in "October Sky," football scholarships were seen as the only way out of Coalwood, West Virginia. The view of football as being a ticket out of the town might be a reason why...

The most significant part of the encounter really happened beforehand. As Homer gets to the Dugout, he dances and is having a pretty good time, it was a break from all the stress of rocket...

Auk XII was the first rocket the boys launched that was loaded with the fuel they called "rocket candy." It was built to the same design as its predecessors, and would be the first rocket to be...

In his memoir, October Sky, Homer Hickam Jr. recounts how he and a group of his friends became interested in building and launching rockets. From around 1957 to 1960, Hickam Jr. and his friends...

From the earliest part of the quest to build rockets, Ike had been an integral part of it. Homer struggled with some of the more technical aspects of the building and as they had just started to...

The crystals that Homer's dad gave to his mom were meant to symbolize the love he held for her. Early on in their relationship, he gives Elsie the crystals and tells her that she deserves diamonds...

The nozzle directs a hot river of gas that reaches the speed of sound. Homer Hickman and his friends were interested in getting a rocket to work, but it was no easy task for the children of coal...

Since they need a bunch of cash to get the money for their new zinc and sulfur fuel, the boys have struggled to find a source of income. Then O'Dell figures out a plan, they are going to go and...

The diameter of the exhaust nozzle would regulate the expansion and distribution of the combustive gases inside the rocket. Ironically, a simple piece of geometry would make a major difference...

The first truth was that Coalwood was at war with itself over the children there and his parents were fighting over how Homer and his brother would spend their lives; the second truth was that if...

After Homer's mother returned home with his dad from the mine accident, she laid him down in bed and simply walked downstairs and ripped the black phone out of the wall and threw it out into the...

Homer's friend, Roy Lee, found out who it was who ran over Homer's cat, Daisy Mae. He meets Homer in the backyard one night to give him the information. Homer thinks it is Pooky, or his son,...

I assume that you are referring to Wernher Von Braun. He was played by Joey DiGaetano in the movie "October Sky." Wernher Von Braun was a real person. He was one of the leading rocket scientists...

In this book, Chipper is a squirrel. We find that out on page 41. He is a pet belonging to Sonny's mother. On that page, Sonny is having a get together with a bunch of his friends. He has...

Clinton Caton is a machinist who works with the boys to build the rockets they've designed. Mr. Caton not only helps but actually improves the boys' designs. First, he lengthened the Auk XIV to...

Elsie wants her son to succeed with his interest in rockets because she believes it could help him go to college. Elsie is Homer Hickam's mother. She spent her adult life as the wife of a coal...

Likely the most devestating thing was the death of Ike Bykovsky, but there were a number of things that happened that night that were hard for Homer to handle. The first was seeing Jim and Dorothy...

Elsie is Homer's mother. Unknown to her family, she had been saving leftover money from her husband's paycheck for years and investing it in the stock market. She had a broker from the neighboring...

Auk XIII is loaded with rocket candy. It jumps off the pad, leans over in a cloud of smoke, and jets off into the sky. When it lands in a clump of trees, the boys are in such a rush to recover it...