October Sky Chapter Summaries – Flashcards

We are introduced to Homer (otherwise known as "Sonny") and his quite simple life in Coalwood, West Virginia. Sonny describes how basic his town is and how most men work in the mine or end up enlisting into the Army. He briefly describes his love for rockets. We learn about Sonny's father (who has quite an impact on Sonny's rocket making later in the book) and about his mother and the loving bond they share.Also, we learn about his brother Jim, not the nicest of men, but a good player on the football team.

We learn what triggered Sonny's need for rocket making. Sputnik was what it was. The Russians launched it into the sky, and it passed through Coalwood. It was all you could hear about on the radio, of course Sonny's dad wasn't much into it because of the fact he resented the Russians and Communists.

Mom; Sonny builds his first rocket that ends up going into his mother's rose garden and blowing off her heavy-duty fence. Homer Sr. doesn't support Sonny's rocket making at all. In the beginning, the rocket making just absolutely embarrassed the Hickam name, and Homer Sr. wanted Sonny to spend his life working in the mines, not on rockets. Yet, the mother, Elsie, encourages Sonny to go for his dreams and build rockets. She doesn't want him in this town, and she thinks the town won't last long enough for that anyways and that Sonny needs to do everything he can to get out.

The boys began to be taunted by others for the rocket incident. Especially by a boy named Buck. They both get into an argument while on the way to their school up in War, West Virginia and both are forced to walk the rest of the way. When Sonny gets to school, his friends aren't quite sure they want to continue the rocket making, so Sonny decides he will do it on his own. That evening Sonny makes a trip to the Big Store and buys some needed supplies for another rocket. Meanwhile, the steel company that owns Coalwood's mine, is demanding less coal, meaning the company must lay off a few workers. Afterward, the union leader, Mr. Dubonnet comes to visit Homer Sr. at his house and tells him that he did everything wrong. The two men get into a furious argument which ends with Mr. Dubonnet leaving and Sonny's father in flames. Sonny then overhears that doctors found a black spot the size of a dime, on his fathers lungs. Near the end of the chapter, Sonny realizes he can't do the rocket thing alone, so he decides to turn to a boy named Quentin for help.

We are introduced to a young man by the name of Quentin. He is quite odd but yet extremely intelligent. Sonny reaches out to him in hopes that he will agree to help with the rockets. Quentin agrees and the two become a team. Altogether the team is made up of Sonny, Quentin , O'Dell, Sherman, Roy Lee, and Billy. Meanwhile, Sonny finally has the courage the ask out his crush, Dorothy Plunk. She lovingly accepts, but not much occurs while the two are together.

In this chapter we notice more of a conflict between Sonny and his father. Sonny's father demands that he quit making rockets, but Sonny disobeys him and even goes behind his back to achieve his dream. A man named Mr. Bykovski decides to help Sonny, he works for Homer Sr. When the rocket they completed is launched, it almost hits his father's office. Both Sonny and Mr. Bykovski are punished for their foolishness.

Although Sonny is told not to create anymore rockets. This doesn't stop him though. Instead, they continue to test their black powder, filling pop bottles with it and measuring the explosion. Later on, the Reverend at the church gives a strict preach to the rocket boys, saying they should respect their fathers, but also that a father should help a son achieve their dream. With this taking place, Homer Sr. decides to support Sonny and find him a place of his own for rockets.

The boys begin constructing their new rocket home called "BCMA". A big part of this chapter is when Sonny's schools football team is suspended from the football season the upcoming year. This was brought on by a lawsuit the town's fathers made whilst trying to get them into the state championship. This means that Sonny's brother is not going to be able to get a football scholarship and will have to find another way to go to college.

In this chapter we are introduced to a man named Jake Mosby. His father was a wealthy man and he helped control the mine that Sonny's father worked at. Meanwhile, the boys finish main construction down at the cape and tells others about their rocket launching. This brings in quite a crowd. Jake ends up giving the boys a telescope as a gift and also gives them a book on trigonometry.

After returning to school after their launches, the rocket boys realize that they are treated much more differently. Perhaps, even a special treatment. The school curriculum has changed and gotten much stricter due to Sputnik with hours of homework every night. Sonny is attempting to keep up with all of this whilst learning calculus.

This chapter begins with Elsie and Homer Sr. getting into a fight over Sonny.The boys begin creating their new rocket candy fuel by mixing sugar and saltpeter with his mother, they are able to create rockets that's main limitation is the oxidation of the metal. Also with this, Sonny's father (slowly becoming more supportive) decides to give Sonny a tour of the mine. Sonny knows he wants to be an engineer when he graduates, but Homer Sr. wants all that taking place in his mine. Near the end, Sonny's mother is furious and claims that he will never work in the mine because of how dangerous it is to his health.

Sonny takes his father's advice and goes off to ask Mr. Bykovski about Werner von Braun. The conversation consists of change, forgiveness, and the possibility that perhaps Homer Sr. is jealous of Sonny's interest in the scientist. Sonny then gets back to his rocket building. He gets help from the machinists by trading favors for work. Most of this comes from the help of his father, even though that Homer Sr. refuses to admit that he is finally supporting his son's decision. The rocket building becomes very successful and it even managed to reach three thousand feet on just one trip. But the fellow boys fear that that is as high as their rocket will go with the rocket candy. Sonny is gaining confidence in himself and begins to believe he can truly achieve anything. This is reinforced at Christmas when Sonny receives an autographed photo and note from Werner von Braun.

Miss Riley, the chemistry teacher, gifts a rocket book to the boys which will show them more about how to build a rocket. She encourages the boys to enter the science fair, which she had been doing throughout most of the story. Miss Riley tells Sonny that he has to be the one with the courage to learn what lies inside the book. Meanwhile, the boys take their sleds to school which ends up being cancelled. Sonny, decides to retreat back home. As he travels, the cold becomes unbearable to the point where a woman stops Sonny and invites him into her home. She insists that Sonny inform his father of this, but not his mother. Upon telling his father the story, Sonny discovered two things. First, that the woman sells moonshine and other unimportant things to men. The other is that his father pulled the woman out of a burning fire as a child. Sonny earns a great deal of respect for his dad after finding this out.

This chapter begins with the launch of Luna 1. The boys slowly being to understand the rocket book. It covers ideas such as De Laval nozzles. The boys strive to really understand what the book is really about. But the find out they must learn calculus - a class not offered at their school. Also, there is a pillar explosion at the mine. No one is hurt, but Sonny has a greater understanding of the mine than he ever had before. Sonny again see's the character in his father, who leads the rescue crew into dangerous passages even though it was not his job to do so. The chapter ends with a few more successful launches of rockets. They prove more than anything that they have reached the limit of what they are capable of doing with their current fuel.

The boys are eager to learn calculus, the only thing holding them back is that the school does not offer it. Considering the fact they are a mining/ football based school, the school thought they would not need such a class. But, the math teacher says that if the principle will agree, he'll do it. After some changes, Sonny and Quentin are surprisingly called into the principal's office. Two state troopers are there to arrest the both of them because they believe the boys are guilty of setting off a rocket that caused a forest fire and burned down some houses. But before that happens, their teachers point out a few problems in the troopers accusations. The place where the fire began was ten miles from the boys' rocket launching area. Quentin explains that it isn't a rocket at all, but a aeronautics' flare. The boys are off the hook. After awhile, the principal ends up getting the calculus class for the boys, but the class only has six spots, raised from five so that all the boys in the club can take it. Except there were seven people who signed up for the class, and Sonny, with the lowest grades, is excluded from the class. To fix this, Sonny finds a book his father used to help teach himself math that he needed to know to run the mine. So Sonny decides to teach himself.

The chapter begins with Sonny's father attending a conference that will be discussing his mine. When returning, Homer Sr. finds out that Sonny was excluded from the class and is using his book to teach himself. This breaks out into a fight because Sonny reassures his father he does not want to be a mine engineer, while his father strives for him to follow in his footsteps. Anyways, the boys decide to join the science fair. They see it as a no-lose situation. By winning, they can prove everyone (especially Homer Sr.) wrong. But if they don't win, they really haven't lost anything. Quentin though, thinks that they have much to lose. They all want to attend college, but none of them have the money to go. In his mind, the science fair might be their only chance to go to college, and for that to work, they have to win and make a lasting impression. This puts a lot of stress on Sonny, and he isn't sure if he can take it.

The boys decide they need a break from rockets. They go to the local hangout called "The Dugout", it's a dancing hall where all the kids go. Upon going, Sonny spots his older brother with his crush, Dorothy. He also discovers Valentine, a girl who he has been friends with but nothing more. Valentine has a fight with one of the football players her brought her, and to comfort herself, she takes Sonny to the back seat of his car and makes him a man. Afterward, Sonny heads home to find that something is terribly wrong. Everyone in town has their lights on and his mother, Elsie, warns him not to go anywhere near the mine.

Sonny soon discovers that his father is deeply involved in the accident at the mine. Sonny sneaks out of the house, disobeying his mother. Turns out, lightening struck one of the vents which caused it to collapse. Homer Sr. is again leading a rescue crew. Sonny watches in deep devastation as someone is brought out on a stretcher, and it turns out to be his dear friend: Ike Bykovski. At the same time, Sonny's mother catches him, calls him selfish and smacks him in the face. Finally, everyone else comes out alive. His father, had been lightly injured and will likely lose one of his eyes. As they return home, the black phone rings, Elsie rips the phone from the wall and throws it into the lawn. After these traumatic events, Sonny feels the worst feeling ever - nothing.

After the death of his fellow friend, Sonny completely blames himself and shuts everyone out. He blasts out as his friends and decides to be what he things everyone from Coalwood should be. It isn't until he speaks to Mrs. Bykovski that he is able to get closure and get better. He finds out that Ike could have returned to his machine shop, but he chose not to. She also has one final wish, that Ike would have loved, that Sonny keeps making those rockets. After this, Sonny is still filled with anger, but goes back to the rockets. Following a launch, Sonny cockily declares they will change the propellant, telling everyone he is in charge and if they don't like that then they can quit. Eventually, Sonny is punched in the chest by a friend, and he moves on from the emotional pain.

The family learns that Sonny's fathers eye will never fully be functional again. The house seems torn apart because everyone has basically gone off on their own. Sonny ends up being late and catching rides to school with Jake because of this. While this occurs, Jake meets Miss Riley, and they seem to click. Meanwhile, the rocket boys need a good source of income. They come up with an idea to go dig out metal pipes from the ground as scrap metal. While doing this, Sonny's wrist is cut on one of the sharp pieces of metal. The boys are forced to carry him miles back to town where he collapses as the doctor is stitching him. After this event, the boys realize the metal isn't worth much at all. It couldn't cover the costs of food for their trip nor did it cover Sonny's stitches. So they resort to borrowing as much money as needed from Jake, and in return they will wax his car.

The rocket boys have began to draw in a huge crowd for their rocket launching. They have become an important figure to the city of Coalwood. It seems they have reached their limit of propellant's abilities. They need another try, so they decide to use Zinc, but it must be mixed first. The only solution appears to be alcohol. So the boys go to the local moonshine sellers in hopes for some pure alcohol. Instead of informing the giver what they wanted it for, they all got drink. But besides that, later on the alcohol shows to work well. But it seems it work a little too well because the rocket ends up landing in Coalwood. It grabs the attention of a vicious company man who attempts to tear down Cape Coalwood, but with the help of Homer Sr. and the town, he is defeated and leaves the town.

With the resources of Coalwood largely behind them, everything comes down to the Rocket Boys. Without excuses, Sonny has to do the math to figure out the best possible way to create the nozzle of their rocket. This requires a lot of high level math that Sonny has to do. After impressing his chemistry teacher with the math, she goes to the principle and after a quiz to ensure he knows what he's talking about, they decide that he will represent the school at the science fair. The good news continues as one of the rockets lands in field of ginseng, which will help pay for the things they need. While the Rocket Boys are going well, the town is not. The battle between the company and union have continue to rise until at the end of this chapter, a shot is fired into the house, barely missing Sonny's father.

This chapter begins with Sonny's parents deciding what to do about the gunshot. They choose not to call the police even though they are almost certain who it was that took the shot at him. Yet his mother isn't simply willing to allow things to remain the same and announces she's buying a house in Myrtle Beach with money she has saved and invested in the stock market. Sonny also discovers that his science teacher has cancer. This strikes him hard because he really does like her, but it also makes a lot of sense since she has shown signs. More directly to him, this means that not only will she not be able to help much with the science fair. He is on his own, literally, since there can be only one name on the science fair signup. During the local science fair, he fears that the local politics will make it difficult, as well as the judges' fear of encouraging rocketry because it is considered dangerous. He does win though, despite the fact that the local strike has began and the machinists helping him have to cross the picket line to do so. This chapter ends with Sonny's cat being killed and the realization by Sonny that the car that hit the cat was likely the same person who shot at his father. He also discovers the main troublemaker has left town and so decides it would be better off not knowing who had killed his cat.

Planning for the trip to the National Science Fair, Sonny is taken to get a suit. While there, he sees John F. Kennedy, who is running for president. This is the first moment of the Rocket Boys and the bigger ideas begin to really intersect as he is given a chance to ask him a question. His question is simply "what do you think we should do with space," and Kennedy turns the question back on him. He answers with the simple idea that they should go to the moon

Sonny reaches the National Science Fair and discovers the competition is bigger than he had expected. With a lot of far more wealthy places represented, there are huge expensive science fair projects, and in general, the judges don't like rockets because they are too dangerous. Even worse, he leaves his nozzles behind and they are stolen. This means he is forced to call his mother and ask the town to get him more before the next day when the judging begins. Here he meets someone who works with his hero Wernher von Braun and discovers that his hero is also at the science fair and begins to search for him. While he is searching the floor unsuccessfully for his hero, the other students lobby successfully for a separate rocketry category. Sonny wins this thanks to the rush of new rocket parts from the town.

The last chapter of "October Sky" has Sonny back in town and the strike largely finished. But it also comes to the end of his high school career. In order to celebrate Sonny and the other Rocket Boys, they decide to launch off the last of their rockets. Everyone in town and a lot of other towns come to see the rockets. Most importantly though is Sonny's father. They launch off their rockets as everyone in the town celebrates. Then, for the final rocket, Sonny invites his father to fire it. This gives the two a moment together giving Sonny the last part of what he wanted the rockets to do.