在一個生產煤礦的小鎮，所有的男孩只有兩種命運，一個是去作隨時都有生命危險的礦工，另一個是爭取足球獎金上大學；希坎姆沒有強碩的體格，加上父親期盼他能繼承父業，挖煤養家，他的人生似乎已沒有選擇。一九五七年十月，蘇聯成功發射第一枚人造衛星，全人類都在仰望這個征服宇宙的太空夢，少年希坎姆注視著遠方的星火微光，彷彿看見生命中的契機，啟動他衝脫宿命的夢想：造火箭！　　在現實環境的強大壓力，遠大夢想便顯得渺小無助。充滿夢想的少年，在友誼的關懷、愛情的滋潤、親情與師長的支持下，他走出了煤林鎮的礦冶宿命，完成自製火箭的計畫！本書是美國太空總署科學家希坎姆的自傳體少年小說，出版後在美國引起極大迴響，並被拍成最具問鼎奧斯卡實力的電影。它溫馨感人的內容，好比「阿甘正傳」；年少輕狂的情誼，有如「七個畢業生」；教育啟發的部份，就像「心靈捕手」；實踐夢想的精神，如同「火戰車」；親子間的甜蜜戰爭，猶如「鋼琴師」；探究科學的歷程，好像「阿波羅13」，書中的每一字裡行間都值得讀者細細品味。 Three years in the life of Homer ’Sonny’ Hickam, from the moment he sees the Sputnik satellite overhead in West Virginia to his successful launch of a prizewinning rocket. A nostalgic and lyrical memoir of growing up in rural West Virginia in the 1950s and one boy’s dream to rival the Russians in the race for space. In 1957 in Coalwood, West Virginia, a town dominated by the black steel towers of the mine and the coal waggons, for a fourteen year old boy there are two routes in life: a football scholarship to college or a life underground. ”Sonny” Hickam, the mine superintendent’s younger son, is too small for the football team. But his destiny is altered when the town turns out to watch the Soviet Sputnik satellite pass overhead. From that moment, Homer Hickam and his friends determine that they will form the Big Creek Missle Agency and build an American rocket. This is the true story of the boys’ adventures from the moment their first rocket, Auk 1, destroys the garden fence and the lovingly tended roses.Supported only by a tolerant mother and a father who turns a literally blind eye, Sonny gradually entrances the entire town to support his enterprise, which eventually is entered for the National Science Fair. He is the first boy from Coalwood ever to enter and among the judges is Werner von Braun. October Sky is the story of a a group of young enthusiasts whose ambition revives an industrial town in decline. They are emblems of a better future, of a life outside the vicious confines of the pit, of a world beyond the imagination. This is a sensitive, funny, brilliant tale of boys besotted by a dream: they want to build a rocket. About the Author Homer H Hickam graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and pursued his dream of launching rockets through a BSc in Industrial Engineering. After service in Vietnam he worked in a variety of rocket engine programmes and joined Nasa in 1981. He is the author of Torpedo Junction, and account of the US war against German U-boats in World War Two, an award winning underwater photographer and a confirmed anglophile who would like to travel by concord.