Kevin Troutman

Bell: 3B
2/4/15

October Sky Essay

Never give up. Small sentence, big meaning. In the book October Sky, Sonny never
gives up on his goal of building a successful rocket. The theme in October Sky, real life, and my
personal life, too, is that never giving up is necessary as people try to reach their goals, not
letting anything hold them back.
The theme never give up helped Sonny and the rocket boys succeed and reach their
goal in making a successful rocket and progress the book towards its climax. This is the main
theme for the book, because without the theme, the rocket boys would have never have
continued to build rockets, because they failed the first time, but because of this theme they were
able to move on after their first failure and fix the mistake. In the book, Sonnys mom tells him
If a door closes, she amended to me after his sermon, find yourself a window and climb through
it. This quote embeds the theme of the book, by Sonnys mom telling sonny to never give up in
another way. This theme also helps out Jim, Sonnys older brother, because near the begging of
the book his football team was cheated out of going to the championships, but Jim and his team
were able to protest and get back into the championships and later was able to get a football
scholarship.

The theme also helps people in society move on and be successful in their lives. A good
example of this is Martin Luther King Jr.s life and how the Civil Rights Movement was able to

Kevin Troutman
Bell: 3B
2/4/15

have friendly protest to help African Americans get their own rights. One of Martin Luther King
Jr.s quotes from his I have a dream speech is There will be neither rest nor tranquility in
America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. This quote proves that both Martin
Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement never gave up until all the other African
Americans got their rights. Both the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr.s never
give up attitude helped them accomplish their dreams to give African American rights as U.S.
citizens.
The never give up theme was able to help me out in and outside of school. This theme
helped me out when I made the transition from elementary to middle school. When I first started
middle school, I was doing horrible in my main classes getting bad grades, but I never gave up
and started to bring my grades back up and was able to do well for all three of my years in
middle school. This theme also helped me when I was on my high school FTC team. This theme
was able to help the whole team learn from our mistakes on our robot and fix it so are robot is
able to perform the functions that it needs to.
This theme in October Sky helps out the characters inside the book, but also help people
outside of the book. The theme helped the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr.
give African American U.S. citizenship rights. Because of the theme of October Sky, Sonny was
able to achieve his goal and work for NASA as an Aerospace engineer.