Homer H. Hickam Jr.’s 1998 Rocket Boys: A Memoir is a partially fictionalized account of how a small town boy from a coal mining family becomes a rocket scientist. The intriguing story follows young Homer Jr., nicknamed “Sonny,” on his quest for knowledge and aspiration of working alongside the legendary Dr. Wernher von Braun at NASA. This is a well written account of the ongoing struggle of rural Appalachia and the difficulties of breaking away from the past that is worth reading. Overall, Hickam is able to expertly explain how he, against all odds, breaks away from tradition to pursue his dreams.
The main characters are the narrator, Sonny; his family, Homer Sr., Elsie, and Jim; and his friends, Sherman, Quentin, Roy Lee, and O’Dell. These people along with the citizens of Coalwood, WV are essential to Sonny’s success as a rocket
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In the beginning the BCMA is a group of curious boys but by the end they mature into educated young men ready for college and their world to expand past southern West Virginia. The rockets symbolize a coming of age for the rocket boys because with each one comes increased knowledge and maturity. It is as if each major event that affects the way they view the world is accepted with the launch of a new rocket. Hickam’s descriptive and powerful language is quintessential to the telling of this novel because no one other than people from similar backgrounds can understand how difficult it is to get out of this cyclic society. He dives straight into this point in the beginning with the line, “Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn’t know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives” (1). This quote can nearly summarize the entire book because it represents each element Sonny and the BCMA set out to overcome through their