Rocket Boys
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Rocket Boys
| Full title | Rocket Boys: A Memoir |
|---|---|
| Author | Homer Hickam |
| Published | 1998 |
| Pages | 368 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Homer Hickam’s memoir of building amateur rockets as a teenager in the coal town of Coalwood, West Virginia, after Sputnik — technical curiosity pursued without resources or permission, mostly by failing, all the way to the National Science Fair and a career at NASA. |
Rocket Boys
Where I heard about it
- Dissident Teacher — on A Library to Build Great Americans, a 468-title curriculum published on Substack in December 2025, in the Ages 13–99+ band under Nonfiction — the list’s clearest case of a book about vocation.
About this edition
Hickam and four friends taught themselves the chemistry and the machining, with help from a machinist in the mine shop and a teacher who pushed them toward the science fair. The other half of the book is the town — his father the mine superintendent, the union, and an economy already visibly ending. The 1999 film adaptation was titled October Sky.
Connections
- A Library to Build Great Americans — the list this came from.
- Homer Hickam — the author, later a NASA engineer at Marshall Space Flight Center.
- Technological Innovation — amateur engineering as its own apprenticeship.
- Engineering — learned by iteration and explosion.
- Education — and the specific role of one teacher in it.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.