To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father

To Own a Dragon is Don Miller's retrospective on the challenges of growing up fatherless in his own life and the impact of mentors and surrogate fathers on fatherless young men. Miller's work is at the same time practical and deeply spiritual and reflective.

Don Miller is an inspiring writer who brings an important perspective to the current inventory of literature for fathers. As a young man, Miller's father left his family and for all purposes checked out of his son's life. Miller catalogues and defiines the impact of growning up fatherless in his life.

To Own a Dragon is more than Don Miller's personal journey. Through the book he weaves into each experience and story the values of fatherhood. He talks about the importabt value of mentors in his life and at the same time recognizes that they are not fathers. His coauthor, John MacMurray, was one of those positive male mentors for Miller. But he also acknowledges others who tried but failed to be the male role model he needed growing up and he explores why and when mentoring works and doesn't.

Don also looks at and opens his readers' eyes to the values that fathers can bring to a young man and what is lost when those values aren't shared and passed on from one generation to the next. Values like spirituality, authority, manhood, decision making, and positive attitudes about sex and women.

And throughout the book, Miller weaves into the story his faith and his attitude toward God as a father--a father who epitomizes true manhood, caring and attention. To Own a Dragon is one man's journey from fatherlessness to wholeness, and is a great read for any man who wants to be a better dad, whatever his personal circumstances.