My Book Report on October Sky

Since I am going to mesquite this weekend, I will not have time to write a sophisticated blog post. So, for your enjoyment, here is a book report that I wrote a long time ago.
In the early 1950's rocket launching was something that was just a mere dream of a few West Virginia "nerd" teenagers. Thought only reachable by the Russians, the BMCA (Big Creek Missile Agency)took up to challenge the dream. It is easy to get caught up in the "blast-off" of "October Sky: A Memoir". This book seemed a threat to my regular read. 428 pages sounded like an unreadable amount. Once I got reading, I enjoyed it. I would recommend this book to any science loving readers.

"Sonny" Hickman doesn't have much of a future percieved for him. His brother, Jim, seemed to have it set out for him. Jim was on the football team, always had a date, and was exceptionally stylish. Sonny, on the other hand, was the definition of a wimp. He never seemed to get the girl he wanted, he read bookshelves full of books, teachers loved him, and he was destined to be another of the mine workers, like every other man in coal wood. He father was the mine superintendint, and took his job very seriously. His dad never seemed to like Sonny. Always Jim. Things were as dull as ever when the Russians sent "Sputnik" into space. Sonny and his group of friends; Roy Lee, Quentin, Sherman, O'Dell and Billy decided that they would start builing rockets. A lot of failures followed. They even blew up Sonny's moms rose fence. The whole town of Coalwood was against them. Before they would succeed with gaining any ground they would have to trade, blow up, and ruin a lot of things. Soon enough, they started to gain air. At one point, Sonny decides to give up building rockets because of the death of his friend. The boys teach themselves trigonometrey, and then calculus to make their launchings more successful. In the end, they enter the science fair. They win at National Levels and they all move on to greater things.

I usually wouldn't think of reading a book about rockets. But this book gave me a new love for the science of it. I would have never guessed that I could become interested in it, and I'm pleased that we read this for my science class. I liked the way that it was told. I liked how well descibed the feelings of Sonny were (you'd hope they would be since this book was written by the one and only Homer Hickman Jr {Sonny}). I didn't like how slow moving it was at first. If this wasn't required I probably would have put the book down after the first few pages.

This book turned out to be a good book, and I'm happy that I read past the first few pages. I would recommend this book to anybody who loves science and is interested in learning new things. But don't get me wrong; even though this book was scientific, it was exciting and kept you on your toes