Summary Of Coalwood By Homer Hickman

Conrad Phillips

Coalwood is a small mining town in Virginia. The whole town is paid for and run around the coal mine. The people of Coalwood say there is only one way out of coalwood, and that is a football scholarship. Homer Hickman has a different dream to get of of Coalwood. Homer faces many challenges and set back but soon discovers that nothing is going to stop his dream of building a rocket. Homer’s life revolved around the fact that the only place he was going to end up was the coal mine. Homer was not a star football player like his brother, he wasn’t very big, he wasn’t stronger, and he really didn’t enjoy it. Homer says “For all the knowledge and pleasure they gave me, the books I read in childhood did not allow me to see myself

His father never liked the fact that Homer was trying to build a rocket, his father believed it was a waste of time because he believed Homer was only going to end up in the mine. Homer didn’t let this stop him, his father may have yelled, thrown away his kits, and told Homer to give up. Homer had a dream and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him. Homer had many setbacks, but he kept working to perfect the team's rocket. Homer's actions really shows the reader that he will never give up on his dream. Everyday Homer sees the coal mine workers. He says “The men crossed the tracks and I saw the glint of their lunch buckets in the tipple light, and I came slowly back to reality. They weren’t explorers on the moon, just Coalwood miners going to work. And I wasn’t on von Braun’s team. I was a boy in Coalwood, West Virginia. All of a sudden, that wasn’t good enough.” Homer knows he can do better than what coalwood was going to give

Homer and his rocket boys had many unsucessful launches of their rockets. The boys ended up getting arrested for a forest fire when a rocket thought to be launched by them was found at the start of a fire that cost the town thousands of dollars. All the boys were bailed out, but Homer felt his dream was over. He started working in the mine, the place he never wanted to be. This seemed to be the end for Homer Hickam and the rocket boys. Homer could never stop thinking about his one rocket that was not accounted for. Now Homer was determined to find that rocket. Homer started doing research on the highest point the rocket reached, the wind that day, the power of gravity and were the parachute would open. He and Sherman gathered all the information and found the rocket, then presented their findings to the school. The rocket they found ended up being Military, but after looking at the rocket they discovered what they could do to their rocket. Now the band was back together and the dream was not