Todd Burpo is one of the #1 bestselling authors in New York, selling more than 11 million copies of the book Heaven is for Real. The novel was written in 2014 and is based on a Catholic family that experienced what they called a miracle.

Colton, who’s only four years old, starts having visions about heaven after undergoing emergency surgery for acute appendicitis. Afterward, he amazes his family with stories about having seen the surgeon operating on his ruptured appendix, his mother calling people in the waiting room to pray, and his father in another room yelling at God to not let him die. He also speaks of incidents with people he never met or knew about: meeting a great-grandfather who had died long before he was born, an unborn sister he never knew about who had died in a miscarriage and having met Jesus.

This is a really good book; it’s both a religious book that helps the reader understand more about the Catholic religion and a little bit of a mystery book as the reader decides whether or not what Colton claims to have seen is real. Told by the father, but often in Colton’s own words, the charming and simple message is that Heaven is a real place, that Jesus really loves children, and to be ready for the battle that is still coming.

Colton was interviewed in a documentary and the novel was made into a movie. The message is simple, and maybe best loved by believers in Heaven, but either way, the story is sweet and fascinating and Colton’s telling of it is believable.