Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent is the story of a family who almost lost a son, but ended up getting a glimpse of Heaven.

The Burpo family has been having a difficult year. Todd, the father of the family, is the main wage-earner. He is a pastor, and he installs garage doors as a side business to supplement the church income. In one year he battled cancer and a severe leg break. After he recovered, he and his wife decided to turn a church conference into a fun, family vacation.

Right before Todd's wife, Sonja drives the kids to meet their father on vacation, their three-year-old son, Colton shows signs of illness. Fortunately, he quickly gets better so they are able to travel. Unfortunately, he becomes ill again on the trip, and things get worse quickly. The boy can't stop throwing up and he soon becomes listless.

The family rushes home to obtain medical care for the young boy, but he keeps getting worse. After seeing several doctors, they determine that his appendix has ruptured and toxins are seeping through his system. The boy is at death's door when his parents leave him when he is wheeled off for surgery.

After a few setbacks, Colton has a miraculous recovery. His little body is riddled with infection and his body doesn't functioning properly. He is ill to a point where they are going to send him to a children's hospital. A storm hinders their travels. The family is celebrating his life as they drive to visit relatives a few months after his recovery. He begins to make some strange statements, and the family eventually realizes that the boy had been given a glimpse of heaven while he was in surgery.

At first the parents can't believe it, but as months and years drag on, he continued telling them things about Jesus, God, and heaven that he couldn't possibly have known at his young age. He describes the heavenly thrones, the triune God, and angels. Colton says he met a sister he never knew he had. It was a child that Sonja had miscarried. He even knew all about Pop, Todd's grandfather, who had died long before the boy was born.

Todd is amazed at how the young boy's descriptions match up with passages from the Holy Bible that the child knew nothing about. At one point he even identifies a painting of Jesus that he says is accurate. It is a painting done by a girl who started having visions of heaven when she was four.

The family starts sharing Colton's story years after the event. They find that it helps people. By the end of the book, the boy is eleven years old. He would talk about heaven every once in a while, but hadn't been there since his experience as a three-year-old.