DVD Review: October Sky

October Sky
[DVD October]

The true story of Homer Hickam, a NASA Engineer, and his high school friends who were worried by the October flight of Sputnik and decided to work on rocketry to make the US a leader in the space race.

Growing up impoverished in the coal mining state of West Virginia their parents saw no use for college or the study of science or rocketry. They aren’t the villains here, they simply believed coal mining to be an honorable profession, and Hickam’s father was very proud of his job as a miner. We follow the boys as one of their high school teachers sees a potential for them and works with them after school as they try to build reliable rockets. Eventually, they find their way to a science fair that offers college scholarships to the winning team.

Even though you know the boys make it out of the coal-mining life, it’s still exciting to watch their success and the eventual pride of their parents.

Based on Hickam’s New York Times bestselling 1998 book “Rocket Boys” which became the basis for this film. Interestingly, “October Sky” is an anagram for “Rocket Boys.” The film’s producers felt girls wouldn’t watch a film entitled “Rocket BOYS” and thus made the switch.

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ]

Read Patty L.’s review of Rocket Boys, the biography this film is based on, from September 2004

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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