"When you reach for the stars you may not quite get there, but you won't come down with a handful of mud either."

"Prodigious": That's the only word I have to describe this truly extraordinary book I read this weekend. I am a very difficult customer to satisfy when it comes to an author's job of trying to keep a reader interested. More often than not I tend to nod off half-way through. Homer Hickam's book "October Sky" simply is a must read. It was originally titled "Rocket Boys", an anagram for October Sky, before the hit movie of the same name. I had seen the trailer and a part of the movie sometime on Star Movies, but something stopped me from watching the whole movie at the time.

The book is a memoir that recounts the story of a group of high-school students in the Appalachian mining community of Coalwood, who build rockets overcoming numerous obstacles and finally represent their state at the National Science Fair. More specifically the tale is that of "Sonny" Hickam's formative years. The journey is marked by many things we can all relate to. The Sputnik and Werner von Braun inspire Sonny to become a NASA engineer and create rockets. It brought back my dreams of turning into an astrophysicist and being inspired by Stephen Hawking after reading "A Brief History of Time". Sonny's team has this unrelenting desire to improve what is already a very commendable effort midway through the book. This quest for perfection makes the book a Jonathan Livingston Seagull meets Wonder Years story. With the mining disaster at Sago, West Virginia taking place this week, the tragedies in the book seemed eerily like a page out of the newspapers.


Homer Hickam with Mrs. Hickam

The book kept me awake and on the edge of my seat all the way through. There are so many twists and turns in the story, that you just can't set the book aside until you reach the other cover. It is only based on true events, so it is partially fictional. In addition to being an engineer, Homer Hickam is also a great writer judging by his ability to transport us back 50 years back in time. The impact of his life was so great that he was one of the torch bearers for the Olympic torch leading to Atlanta. His team is honored with the "Rocket Boys Day" in West Virginia.