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This is an allusion to the great auk, which is a flightless seabird that became extinct in the mid-19th century. Their first real rocket, powered by black powder, is named Auk 1. After that, Sonny enlists the help of Quentin Wilson, Roy Lee Cooke, Sherman Siers, Jimmy "O'Dell" Carroll, and Billy Rose to help build rockets while forming the BCMA (Big Creek Missile Agency). It explodes violently, destroying his mother's fence. It is fueled by flash powder from old cherry bombs.

Sonny's first attempt at rocketry (which occurred when he was 14) consists of a flashlight tube and model airplane body as a casing. Sonny's mother is afraid that he will have to work in the mines after high school. Sonny, however, is terrible at sports and has no special skill that would get him "out of Coalwood". In the movie October Sky, he is called Homer.) Sonny's older brother, Jim Hickam, excels at football and expects to get a college football scholarship. (Note: In the book Rocket Boys, the main character is always called Sonny. Sonny, after seeing the Russian satellite Sputnik, decides to join the American team of rocket engineers called the Missile Agency when he graduates from school.

lives in a small coal mining town in West Virginia named Coalwood. The book was then re-published as October Sky shortly afterwards. Rocket Boys was made into a film in 1999, titled October Sky (an anagram of "Rocket Boys"). October Sky was followed by The Coalwood Way (2000), Sky of Stone (2002), and Carrying Albert Home (2015). It is also studied in many school systems around the world. Today, it is one of the most often picked community/library reads in the United States. Weatherford Award in 1998, the year of its release. It is a story of growing up in a mining town, and a boy's pursuit of amateur rocketry in a coal mining town.

Later editions were published under the title October Sky as a tie-in to the 1999 film adaptation. originally published in 1998 as Rocket Boys. October Sky is the first memoir in a series of four, by American engineer Homer Hickam Jr.