false<![CDATA[Rocket Boys]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171345733m/96642.jpg9664221Inspired by Werner von Braun and his Cape Canaveral team, 14-year-old Homer Hickam decided in 1957 to build his own rockets. They were his ticket out of Coalwood, West Virginia, a mining town that everyone knew was dying--everyone except Sonny's father, the mine superintendent and a company man so dedicated that his family rarely saw him. Hickam's smart, iconoclastic mother wanted her son to become something more than a miner and, along with a female science teacher, encouraged the efforts of his grandiosely named Big Creek Missile Agency. He grew up to be a NASA engineer and his memoir of the bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science Fair in 1960--an unprecedented honor for a miner's kid--is rich in humor as well as warm sentiment. Hickam vividly evokes a world of close communal ties in which a storekeeper who sold him saltpeter warned, "Listen, rocket boy. This stuff can blow you to kingdom come." Hickam is candid about the deep disagreements and tensions in his parents' marriage, even as he movingly depicts their quiet loyalty to each other. The portrait of his ultimately successful campaign to win his aloof father's respect is equally affecting. <I>--Wendy Smith</I> 10685851998Rocket Boystotal:1595|5:565|4:705|3:272|2:46|1:7|15956560211029005falsefalseSun May 11 00:33:43 -0700 2008Sun May 11 00:33:43 -0700 2008 DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE, THAT FIFTY YEARS AGO, PEOPLE WERE HOOKING UP IN BAND BUSES!?
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42truefalseThu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009Tue Dec 09 17:40:17 -0800 2008Thu Jan 08 13:03:18 -0800 2009 Although I was a teenager more than a decade later than Hickam was, some of the things he wrote about hit close to home. I, too, gre...more...]]>
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Homer H. Hickam Jr.
Genre: Autobiography
Theme: Follow Your Dreams
Sonny (Homer H. Hickam Jr.) is a boy growing up in a cole mining town. His father runs the cole mines and all life in the town of Coalwood revolves around the mining of coal. Sonny is expected by...more...]]>
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00falsefalseMon Dec 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008Mon Oct 27 07:42:14 -0700 2008Mon Dec 15 12:25:32 -0800 2008 Homer Hickam Jr. discusses his high school years at Coalwood High School, which is in a West Virginia coal mining town of the sa...more...]]>
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