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Rocket Boys

ISBN: 0385333218

Title: Rocket Boys

Author: Homer H. Hickam, Jr.

KDL Description:

The author traces the boyhood enthusiasm for rockets that eventually led to a career at NASA, describing how he built model rockets in the family garage in West Virginia, inspired by the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik.
Lexile Level: 900
Guided Reading Level: NR

Amazon Description:

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film “October Sky,” Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir — a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother’s love and a father’s fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space . . . and who made those dreams come true.

With the grace of a natural storyteller, NASA engineer Homer Hickam paints a warm, vivid portrait of the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evoking a time of innocence and promise, when anything was possible, even in a company town that swallowed its men alive. A story of romance and loss, of growing up and getting out, Homer Hickam’s lush, lyrical memoir is a chronicle of triumph — at once exquisitely written and marvelously entertaining.