Book Review: "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo

After driving for several days on our moving trip from Sacramento to Cincinnati, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for two reasons: (1) for dinner (we really like their food, and there aren't any CB's on the West coast), (2) to purchase an audio book on CD to help entertain us for some portion of the remainder of the trip.  We wanted to listen to a book that was not only interesting, but also kid friendly.  Amanda found this one, which we had read about in a news article a while back.

I had fairly recently read a book about another individual's "heavenly" experience called 90 Minutes in Heaven (link is to my review), and I was curious to hear the perspective of this little boy.  Similar to the other book, the author went through a great deal of effort to legitimize not only the information that his son relayed to him, but also the method with which they obtained it.  He made sure to explain (a) how the boy knew and observed things that could only be possible if he did indeed experience what he claims, (b) how the details of his experience cross correlate with Biblical text, and (c) how they did not coerce him or influence him in any way to say specific things.

I don't know if this story will convince atheists or skeptics that an afterworld exists, or to accept Christianity as their faith of choice.  If you're not a Christian though, and after reading/listening to this story you believe at least some of what this kid experienced as truth, then I don't see how it couldn't have some positive affect on your beliefs.

In the end, our whole family found this to be an interesting, enlightening, and inspirational story.  It made not only some of our journey in the car more enjoyable, but perhaps some of our journey in life too.