Starman Jones

Starman Jones is a science fiction novel by the American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1953 as one of the books he wrote for younger readers.

Max Jones has grown up on an Ozark farm with an eidetic memory, a dead father and a stepmother who marries a man he cannot stand. He leaves with the astrogation manuals of an uncle who had belonged to the Astrogators' Guild, a body whose memberships pass from father to son, and he hopes the guild will name him his uncle's heir. On the road he falls in with Sam Anderson, a hobo who feeds him, steals the manuals and later returns them, and the two of them use forged service records to get aboard a starship, where Max signs on as a steward's mate. He learns the crew's manuals by heart, becomes friendly with a passenger named Eldreth Coburn and her alien pet, and is present when the ship's officers have to trust a junior crewman's knowledge.

The novel follows Max from the farm to a working starship, where the trade he taught himself counts for more than the guild papers he was never given.