Rocket Boys Mod 3

Rocket Boys

 

By:  Homer Hickman, Jr

Book Blog Module:  3

Module Descriptor and Page #:  Character & Plot Pg. 162-163

A.    Author	Homer Hickam, Jr
B.     Title	Rocket Boys
C.     Illustrator	Homer Hickman, Jr Photographs
D.    Readability Score	Grade 9-12
E.     Genre	Nonfiction
F.      Subgenre	Memior
G.    Theme	Anyone can do anything they dream if they set their mind to do so.
H.    Primary and Secondary Characters	Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. is the main character.  He is 14 years old at the beginning of the story, and serves as the unspoken leader of the Rocket Boys. He is very nearsighted and requires glasses. Quentin Wilson is an intelligent member of the Rocket Boys and the person who does the most math out of the entire group. Jimmy "O'Dell" Carroll is small and excitable, the most emotional member of the group. Sherman Siers has a physically weakened left leg as a result of polio. Roy Lee Cooke is Sonny's best friend. Willie "Billy" Rose is a member of the Rocket Boys who joins the group about a year after it is founded. Miss Riley is a chemistry and physics teacher at Big Creek High School who inspires the Rocket Boys to compete in the National Science Fair. Jake Mosby is a womanizing alcoholic who helps the BCMA in paying off debts. Basil Oglethorpe is the writer of a small newspaper called the McDowell County Banner. He is in charge of the BCMA's publicity. Mr. Ferro is in charge of a group of company machinists who help the BCMA build their rockets. Mr. Caton is a machinist in Mr. Ferro's team. He is the main builder of the BCMA's rockets. Homer Hickam, Sr. is a hard-headed mine foreman in Coalwood and Sonny's father. Elsie Hickam is Sonny's mother. Dorothy Plunk is Sonny's dream girl. Valentine Carmina is an older girl who likes Sonny. Jim Hickam is Sonny's older brother who plays for the school's football team. He dates the girl Sonny is in love withMr. Isaac Bykovski is a worker in the mine who helps Sonny with his first rockets. Geneva Eggers is a middle-aged woman who was rescued as a baby by Homer Hickam Sr. when her house was on fire. Buchanan "Buck" Trant is a football player that hates Sonny.
I.       Awards/Date of Publication	1998
J.       Publishing Company	Delacorte Press
K.    ISBN Number	9780385333214
L.     Summary	In 1957, a 14 year old boy named Sonny Hickman lived in Coalwood, West Virginia where a coal mining company was the dominate bread winner for the families that lived there.  Sonny’s father ran the coal mine causing Sonny to get picked on back all the other kids because his dad was their dad’s boss.  Elsie, Sonny’s mom, wanted Sonny to do something besides won in the coal mine. He wasn’t athletic like his older brother who was the captain of the football team.  Sonny hung out with a group of boys that were creative just as he.  The group of boys spent much of the free time playing and making up games.  Things changed for sunny when Russia’s satellite Sputnik was launched before the United States.  From this point Sonny was determined to learn everything about building a rocket.  Everyone except his mother and his teacher Miss Riley thought he and his friends were crazy, but they were determined.  Miss Riley gave Sonny a How to Build Rockets book and immediately he and his friends went to work.  After the boys spent so much time working on the rocket for the science fair, Miss Riley told Sonny that there could only be one person to enter.  She had put Sonny as the person to enter.  Events began to happen in that Miss Riley told Sonny that she was sick with cancer and could not help him with his project.  Mr. Hickman who gave the boys materials and a launching area near the coal mine until everything was great until Mr. Fuller got the union to move the rocket boys off the property because the boys had launched a rocket causing a huge mess and Mr. Fuller pulled the plug on their rocket launching. Then someone shot a bullet into the Hickman’s home.  Sonny and the boys went to the science fair and set it up.  Although Sonny was the main name, all the boys were there to support.  They won the science fair and entered into the national science fair and won a gold medal there too.  The boys launched the Auk XXXI on June 4, 1960 at Cape Coalwood.
M.   Picture of Book Cover
N.    Usage with students	Encouragement writing -  Have you ever wanted to give up before?  Who encouraged you?  What did they do to encourage you? Research the history of Sputnik and the  "Space Race".  Descrobe the fear faced by the population during the 1950's and 60's.  Understand this will help students to understand about the nuclear threat as well - hence the relationship to nuclear technology listed in the science portion of this article. Cold War Ideas and info: http://wars.mrdonn.org/coldwar.html http://www.neok12.com/Cold-War.htm http://www.history.com/search?search-field=Cold+War&x=0&y=0 Specific to the Space Race: http://www.history.com/search?search-field=Space+Race&x=0&y=0 http://dsc.discovery.com/search/results.html?focus=site&query=Space+Race Use the Discovery Channel's "When We Left Earth" .