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2. CHARACTERS
 The main characters in Heaven are for Real
are Colton Burpo andTodd Burpo. The
minor characters in this book consist of
Colton's older sister, Cassie, Dr. O'Holleran,
and Colton's mom, Sonja.There are many
other minor characters in this story,
including Ali.

3.  Colton Burpo
 Colton Burpo is the main character of Heaven is for
Real. Colton was feeling stomach problems for a
continuous amount of time so his parents took him to
a doctor.The doctor misdiagnosed him with the flu,
but Colton was not getting any better. His parents
took him to the Children's Hospital of Denver, and
they diagnosedColton with a burst appendix. He had
to undergo emergency surgery. Colton was not
predicted to survive but had a successful surgery. A
couple months after his surgery, he started referring
to Heaven as it existed and talked about the amazing
place. His parents kept pushing it aside but finally
realizedColton had been in Heaven for some time
while undergoing his surgery.

4.  Todd Burpo
 Todd is the father of Colton and is also the co-
author of the book.Todd is the pastor of a
church called Crossroads in Imperial,
Nebraska. Occasionally, he preaches about his
son's story of going to Heaven for a short time
to change listener's hearts and destroy their
doubts.Todd is a volunteer firefighter when he
is not focused on his church.

5.  Sonja Burpo
 Sonja is Colton's mother. She is a teacher at a
school in Nebraska. Sonja realized that Colton's
sickness was much more than the flu because it
had been going on for a long time. She knew
that they had to bring Colton to a Children's
Hospital to discover his true sickness to make
him feel better.

6.  Dr. O'Holleran
 Dr. O'Holleran is the doctor who performed emergency
appendix surgery on Colton in Colorado.
 Cassie Burpo
 Cassie Burpo is Colton's older sister. She experienced the
same stomach pains as Colton when they first
misdiagnosed him with the flu, but she did not have a burst
appendix.
 Ali
 Ali is the Burpo's babysitter who was touched when she
heard about Colton's story. She came back to the faith after
hearing about how much Colton missed his sister who he
had met in Heaven.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. MORALVALUES
 First, I must admit that the book’s level of
professionalism surprised me. I often thought, “For a
pastor, Todd Burpo writes very well.”
 I’m not knocking pastors (after all, I’ve been there,
done that). What surprised me was that this was
Todd’s first stab at writing. The sentences were crisp,
clear, and well-written. Several turns of phrases
were, in my estimation, exceptional.
 In describing the pain of kidney stones, Todd wrote:
“I had once slammed my middle finger in a tailgate
and cut the tip off. That was like baking cookies
compared to this.” The mental picture of pain came
through with high-def clarity.

11. INSIGHT
We need to accept the boundaries God Himself
has put on what He has revealed. It is sheer
folly to speculate where Scripture is silent. It
is sinfully wrong to try to investigate spiritual
mysteries using occult means. And it is
seriously dangerous to listen to anyone who
claims to know more about God, heaven,
angels, or the afterlife than God Himself has
revealed to us in Scripture.

12.  For most of the film,Todd is oscillating between
doubt and belief, experiencing frustration, and
becoming so enthralled by Colton’s story that he
begins to focus on the afterlife at the expense of
the present.As a result, his wife chides him for
ignoring the family’s financial troubles and
risking his own job over his obsession with what
it was exactly that Colton witnessed.