The Rocko Rocket Story
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Rocko's Big Launch is an award-winning picture book written by Yolande Clark-Jackson and illustrated by her husband, Rock Jackson, an internationally exhibiting artist and designer who once upon time, taught art to pre-schoolers. In 1995 when he created a puppet for a group of his students from a split basketball, Yolande gave the puppet a name and a story.
Rocko's Big Launch is about a little boy who wants to be a rocket scientist. Rocko dreams of building a rocket so he can travel to outer space. His first challenge, however, is to figure out how to keep his model rockets from crash landing.
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The Story Behind the Story
​As a student at Morgan State University, Yolande worked as a research assistant for the late Ernest C. Hammond Jr. At that time, Hammond was a professor of physics and a Principal Investigator for a NASA research project. Hammond had a passion for not only physics, but also astronomy. The character, Rocko Rocket, was inspired in part by imagining what Prof. Hammond must have been like as a child.
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Rocko's Big Launch was produced as a result of a successful kickstarter project and later became an award-winning self-published book.
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Follow Rocko
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Rocko Rocket's Youtube series ThinkSpace Kids launched on Jaunuary 1, 2025.
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Rocko's Big Launch, ThinkSpace Coloring Book, The Sun picture book and digital versions of Rocko's Big Launch are now available on our website in English, Spanish, and French.
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