In October Sky, Homer Hickam Jr. depicts his childhood as being full of conflict. His parents started to argue over him as soon as he was born, when he turned out not to be the daughter his father had wanted. His mother, Elsie, was angry with her husband for making his disappointment so obvious and retaliated by naming the boy Homer, after him.

Homer Jr., generally known in the family as Sonny, always felt that his father disliked him and placed him a distant second to his elder brother, Jim, a popular boy and a star athlete. In particular, his father disapproved of Sonny's rocket-building projects and was determined that his son should follow him into a career as a mining engineer. The rift between them deepened when Sonny admitted that he had no ambition to work in mining.

Sonny's mother disagreed with his father and did not want her son to become a miner or to be trapped in the small community of Coalwood, where the family lived. She was worried that Sonny would blow himself up with his rockets, but, apart from urging him to be careful, she was supportive of his scientific ambitions and took Sonny's side in arguments about the future with his father.