October Sky
October Sky is a story about a boy named Sonny who lives in Coalwood, West Virginia. Sonny's dad is a coal miner and his dad wants him to be just like him when he's older. Everybody at his school loves football and plays it. There's a girl named Dorothy Plunk that Sonny thinks is a beautiful young lady. She is Sonny's crush and one day they become really close. Sonny got inspired by Dr. Wernher von Braun who is a rocket scientist. Miss Riley (Sonny's chemistry teacher) inspired Sonny and his friends to compete to build a rocket. Through out the story it talked about Coalwood, West Virginia. "In 1957, when I was 14 years old and first began to build my rockets, there were nearly two thousand people living in Coalwood." (Hickam 1) "Coalwood, West Virginia, where I grew up, was built for the purpose of extracting the millions of tons of rich bituminous coal that beneath it." (Hickam 1) " Each house in Coalwood had a fenced-off square of yard." (Hickam 2)
Where Sonny and his friends went to high school.
The October Sky book by: Homer Hickam.