Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)

In 1957, as Sputnik crossed the Appalachian sky, the small mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia faced a slow decline. Homer Hickam, the introspective son of the mine's superintendent, dreamed of launching rockets into outer space. He joined a group of misfits who learned to build sophisticated rockets from scrap metal while maintaining hope in a town that consumed its men. As the boys launched their flaming projectiles into the night sky, Coalwood and the Hickam family were transformed. NASA engineer Homer Hickam recounts this period with the perspective of a natural storyteller, depicting the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth and a time of innocence and possibility. The memoir explores coming of age at the end of the 1950s, a mother's determination to get him out of Coalwood, a father's concerns, and the experience of growing up and leaving home.