ECBC has had so much fun over the past couple weeks celebrating Halloween with CHOC patients by sharing terrific Halloween-themed literature!  This includes patients and siblings trick-or-treating for 207 Halloween books at our annual BOO-ks for Treats event; delivering 473 Halloween-themed books to our outpatient libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic; handing out 97 Halloween books individually to patient rooms via our Mobile Book Cart; and reading a whole bunch of spooky stories at oncology, neurology, and other patients’ bedside. This amounts to a total of 777 new Halloween-themed books being gifted this Halloween season! Additionally, volunteers gave out beautiful and inspirational literary Halloween cards made by local high students (e.g., “ENWITCH your mind by READING” with an illustration of a witch reading! or CARVE some time for reading with an illustration of a carved pumpkin). Patients are so excited to celebrate Halloween, and it’s magical how powerful a wonderful Halloween book can be to inspire reading that wouldn’t otherwise happen!

A huge thank you to everyone who donated and conducted their own book drives to make this all possible: NCL North Tustin for the 183 Halloween books and 186 Halloween cards they donated (thank you Ali, Haley and Kendall Langdon for organizing the book drive); the William P. Gray Legion Lex American Inn of Court for the 83 books they donated (thank you Elia Naqvi for organizing this book drive); the many individual donors who participated in Ethan’s Halloween book drive on Amazon that resulted in hundreds more books arriving in the mail; the Foothill High Schools Ethan & Choco student club for the 64 Halloween cards they made (thank you to club President Eleanor Nguyen); El Dorado High School’s Books 4 CHOC Club for the 50 cards they made (thank you to club President Leila Do); ECBC lead volunteers Cathie James and Anne Case for helping to host our BOO-ks for Treat event; and all of our ECBC bedside readers this month for delivering such fun read-aloud in patient rooms!

This post cannot be complete without mentioning the significance of ECBC’s Halloween book sharing for our Co-Founder Ethan. Just a few days prior to Halloween in 2014, Ethan was diagnosed with Leukemia at 7.5 years old. On October 31st of that year, exactly ten years ago today, Ethan had surgery to insert a port in his chest, he received his first dose of chemo, and he dressed up with his siblings to trick-or-treat at CHOC for candy and other small toys (yet no books to be seen!). And now, 10 years later and a high-school senior, it’s remarkable to witness Ethan’s continued joy in sharing his love of reading as he hands out Halloween-themed books so that patients can also enjoy literary candy!