The Rocket Boys Essay

Rocket Boys is a story of perseverance, hard work, and determination, but most of all, it is a story of family. Rocket Boys shows the often fragile relationships between blood family, the bonds built between close friends, and the ability to choose your own family. You do not choose who is related to you, but you can choose who is family to you.
An individual’s relationship with their family is not always a good one. While early on in the book not too much is explored by way of Homer’s family, it is quickly developed that Homer does not have a good relationship with his brother or his parents. These relationships are characterized by a brother who feels superior to him because of his athletic skills, a father whom is hardly ever home for

his children, and a clear rift between Homer’s parents, centered around the future of the children. Jim is a bully and for much of the book, he and Homer butt heads in various ways and get into many fights. Despite being blood family, Homer has a less than adequate relationship with his brother and his parents.
The book Rocket Boys, being a coming-of-age novel as much as anything else, tells the story of a boy who builds bonds with the people around him.

Homer builds his own family with the BCMA. His new family are the Rocket Boys; Quentin, Roy Lee, Sherman, O’Dell, and all the people who have helped them along the way. Throughout the BCMA’s existence they face adversity and difficult challenges but always come out on top, as a team. They fight like family, such as when Homer is accused of being self-centered (and admits to it) but that is the point. The bonds these boys have built stays with them.
Through most of the book, Homer is talking about and with his friends and his found family; though he talks about Homer Sr. a bunch, he doesn’t like to mention Jim. It’s telling that this book is called Rocket Boys. His family of Rocket Boys is what he finds the most appealing about his life. Not his brother, not his father, but the Rocket Boys and everything they’ve done together.
In Rocket Boys, the idea of family is explored greatly; it is not specifically stated as a theme, but nearly every action that Homer’s families take characterizes them further and sets the theme. The differences between Homer’s blood family and found family are constantly contrasted. Both of them are explored and the idea of choosing your own family and finding camaraderie in unexpected places is the central theme of the book. Rocket Boys is a story about

family.