Chapter 1, Coalwood- Chapter 2, Sputnik Summary and Analysis

"Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my home town was at war with itself over its children, and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine"(p. 1).This opening from "Rocket Boys," establishes that Homer "Sonny" Hickham Jr.'s story is the story of a boy who learns that Coalwood, his hometown...