Product Description
Once again, #1 bestselling author Homer Hickam takes readers on a ride back to the hometown of his youth in a new memoir as moving as October Sky. The New York Times applauded, "Hickam builds a story of overcoming obstacles worthy of Frank Capra," and readers are eager for more.

By the summer of 1961, Sonny Hickam, who has just finished his first year of college, thinks he has left his hometown of Coalwood behind forever. He's got big dreams—dreams that got their lift-off with the backyard rocket launches of his adolescense. But a scandal at the mine that threatens to ruin his father takes Sonny home for the summer. And to his surprise, what begins as a summer of coal dust and misery will allow him to discover truths not just about his parents, work, and Coalwood, but about himself and the true nature of his dreams.

As he did in October Sky, Hickam's touching memoir recreates a place and time that is at once uncannily familiar and wonderfully revealing. USA Today raved, "Unlike so many memoirs, this book brings to life more than on man's experiences." Hickam makes this happen again in Sky of Stone.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 42 reviews)

It just gets better and better

If you have read Rocket Boys, it's imperative you continue with Coalwood Ways and Sky of the Stone. All are wonderful reads with great life lessons. Sky of the Stone was my favorite of the three but they build on each other. I look forward to reading Red Helmet in February!

December 21, 2007

Rocket Boys continued!

Just a great part 3 continuation of "The Rocket Boys", AKA: "October Sky". I could hardly put it down. I really enjoyed this book, too.
March 27, 2007

A darker sequel

I read October Sky a week ago and then grabbed this one. I haven't read The Coalwood Way but after starting Sky of Stone, don't think it's necessary. This book continues where October Sky left off, and in many ways people are introduced in this book that were never mentioned in the first book. In manyways this book seems to be derived from all the notes taken out of the first book. Sonny's father's character comes to light in this book and we see the continued tension between father and son, and the son's reluctant growth into adulthood when he accepts (or is forced into) adult decisions for the first time.

Homer is a year out of college and he's slowly learning that many of the naive things he experienced in boyhood are coming back to haunt him. Where we all read about the fame and success of the six Rocket Boys, we now find that they are scattered across the country in college. With Homer, the grades in the first year weren't anything out of this world, or anything indicative of an aspiring rocket scientist. Without reading October Sky this book may appear to be a mystery, and I recommend reading October Sky first before attempting this one.

It is unfair to compare one book to the other, although I am doing it right now. What the first book was in childish charm, this one is with mature awakening. The writing style is still superb, the narrative flowing. The built-up to the plot, however, takes longer. The rocket scientist is no longer a rocket scientist in this book, and we find Homer Jr more of his father's son as a summer miner, exactly what he never wanted to be while in high school.

There is much more sadness in this book. The focus is on the death of a miner at the mine that Sonny's father manages. This book is more of a country suspense than it is a happy-go-lucky story like October Sky is. I think that this change in tone was necessary because the first book was full of optimistic, youthful naivete.

The problem with sequels and trilogies is that to understand the whole picture, all books must be read. I have now read two of the three and don't plan on reading the second book.

March 24, 2007

A great book

A wonderful book that was not only an engaging story, but offered a glimpse into the life of West Virginia coal miners. Following on the heels of the "Rocket Boys" ( the book that inspired the movie "October Sky"), this book carries on the story of Rocket Boy and author Homer Hickam. You won't be sorry you read this book.
November 04, 2006

An excellent peice of literature

Sky of Stone, by Homer "Sonny" Hickam, is the sequel to his famous memoir, Rocket Boys, (October Sky). The story takes place in 1961, a year after his graduation from high school. Sonny, now eighteen, has just finished his first year of college at VPI, and is hoping to spend his summer with his mother in Myrtle Beach, lying on the beach, watching the girls go by, and dreaming about building rockets with Wernher Von Braun, the world famous rocket engineer. Out of the blue, his mother calls and says that he can't go to South Carolina; he to go back to Coalwood, West Virginia, the place he thought he was free from, to keep his father company. Sonny, shocked out of his socks, at first argues, but he eventually gives up knowing that he would not want to get on his mom's bad side. So, he heads up to Coalwood, filled with confusion pounding at his head. His father is a pretty stubborn man who can hold is own. Why would he need his company?
Within the first few days of being in Coalwood, Sonny wrecks his father's car. In order to pay his father back for repairing the damages, Sonny has to do the one thing that he never dreamed he would do in this or any other life time: he joins the UMWA (United Mine Workers of America), which is the union for the Coalwood miners. He becomes a "track-laying man," one of the hardest jobs in the mining business. His father, completely enraged with this, as well as having the pressure of the Tuck Dillon case on his mind, threatens to cut off Sonny's college fund if Sonny doesn't stop working in the mines. Yet, Sonny, who is actually beginning to enjoy the hard work of being a miner, refuses.
As the story goes on, Sonny slowly begins to find more and more information about the Tuck Dillon accident, and starts to wonder if his father might have actually killed Tuck. Sonny also has many other adventures during this experience of being a miner. He makes many new friends, some of whom give him very important advice and teach him life lessons; he meets a girl engineer who is older than he, and he starts to have feelings for. He also participates in a heated track-laying race with the other mining group.
Sky of Stone, like Rocket Boys, is a beautifully well-written memoir, filled with such amazing images, you feel as though you are reading a novel. The fact that this is a true story about one man's experience is astonishing. Along with it being about Homer's life, it deals with the hardships of growing up, changing from a teenager into a young man, trying to find your place in the world, while dealing with reality and the new feeling of independence. Each page you read takes you further into this adventure, making you fall in love even more with the book. You feel as though you are with Sonny every step of the way, learning more and more from this new experience. Personally, having read October Sky, I love both books and think that Homer Hickam is great author. It is a wonderful book, for anyone, as it reflects on life and the many lessons it teaches us, "I knew then, as I faced the sky, that Coalwood would go on. Its buildings might be torn down, its mine closed, its people might even die, but Coalwood would persevere. There was something about this place that maybe, as the Reverend Richard maintained, God just liked. Coalwood had nothing to fear and I guessed I didn't, either. When I needed it, the old place of my boyhood would yet be there waiting for me with all its wisdom and purpose, if not in stone and wood and iron, then still in my memory and my heart. I closed my eyes and felt the rain against my face, and smelled the smoke of the defeated fire, and thought of Coalwood. Coalwood, as it was, and shall be. Coalwood my home. Coalwood forever." (354). As I got to the end of the book I felt as though I was looking back on memory, in awe and filled with respect. In conclusion, I think this is great book, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

May 19, 2006

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

The Coalwood Way (The Coalwood Series #2)
by Homer Hickam

Rocket Boys (The Coalwood Series #1)
by Homer Hickam

We Are Not Afraid: Strength and Courage from the Town That Inspired the #1 Bestseller and Award-Winning Movie "October Sky"
by Homer Hickam

October Sky (Special Edition)
Directed by Joe Johnston
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dern, Chris Owen, William Lee Scott
Universal Studios

Back to the Moon: A Novel
by Homer Hickam