Ethan & Choco's Book Club

Striving to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that SuperKids receive in the hospital, with the principal premise that literacy support for children fighting cancer and other life-threatening conditions can help promote cognitive development and social connections that are part of thriving through treatment and beyond


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Monthly Outpatient Delivery!

This week we re-stocked our gifting libraries at CHOC’s Outpateint Infusion Center and the Oncology  Clinic with 455 new books — with several hundred of them being super fun Halloween-themed titles. We still need many more Halloween books for our big BOO-ks for Treats event next week on the inpatient side of the hospital. Please donate if you can! bit.ly/Halloweenbooks4ECBC


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Outpatient Book Delivery Day!

Today was outpatient book delivery day! ECBC re-stocked our gifting cart at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and our mini library at the Oncology Clinic — gifting a total of 500 new books for patients of all ages, infant through teen/young adult. ECBC also delivered 15 Read Think Thrive Bags, our book bags filled with ten new books and book crafting supplies — to be gifted to patients who are newly diagnosed with cancer. This typical outpatient delivery amounts to a cash value of approximately $7500 and wouldn’t be possible without the support of our community via our annual fundraiser and ongoing throughout the year.

Next up: We are going to need a HUGE amount of Halloween-themed books! Please keep an eye out for our Halloween book drive, or consider hosting your own Halloween book drive at your school, business, philanthropy group, or book club!


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Largest Outpatient Delivery Day To Date!

Today was our monthly re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. Usually our bins have scattered books remaining, but today every bin from both libraries was completely empty — so we donated a total of 515 new books for infant through teenage/young adult aged patients. One of the oncology nurses mentioned that patients are now arriving for their chemo infusion or their oncology visit eager to choose a book, and almost all kids are choosing a book over a toy. As stated in our mission, ECBC strives “to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital” — it’s so exciting that books have become a regular and expected part of patients’ outpatient oncology experience!

Today, May 24, is also the 5 year anniversary of the launching of our inpatient program at CHOC, which includes bedside reading in patient rooms by our education/literacy expert volunteers as well as our mobile gifting book cart program. Currently, our bedside reading and mobile books cart programs run on the 5th floor, which is oncology, neurology, and multi-speciality — so many of the hospital’s sickest kids with the longest stays. With sustained and improved funding we hope to someday be able to expand this program to bring high-quality literature and reading experiences to all inpatient floors!

PLEASE help us sustain and grow our programs by joining us at BOOK IT, our annual charity walk/run in Irvine, CA! You can sign up to walk or run (as well as donate) by clicking HERE! And, please share our BOOK IT registration site with your own family and friends — https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023!


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Outpatient re-stocking day!

Today was outpatient book delivery day for the month of March! Patients went through more books this past month than ever in the past, and we restocked 450 books for patients of all ages. Many kids and families are now looking forward to their visits because they know they will get to pick out a new high-quality book from a fantastic and varied collection. Books motivating kids to look forward to their oncology and chemo infusion visits—I’d call that success for ECBC for sure!

To help ECBC re-stock for next month’s delivery, CLICK HERE to purchase a book from our Amazon wish list. Or, CLICK HERE to make a monetary donation.


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Outpatient Book Delivery Day at CHOC

Today we re-stocked our outpatient libraries at CHOC Children’s Hospital with 250 new books. This allows all patients visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic to select a new, age-appropriate book when they visit for a chemo infusion or physician appointment. We deliver 200-500 books each month to our outpatient libraries so we are grateful to our donors who help us to make this possible. To donate a book from our amazon wish list, CLICK HERE. All books will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor name.


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Outpatient Holiday Book Delivery!

Today, we delivered a TON (288, to be exact) of new December holiday-themed books to our mini-libraries at CHOC Children’s Outpatient Infusion (OPI) Center and CHOC’s Oncology Clinic! This allows all patients who visit the oncology clinic or OPI in the next few weeks to pick out a terrific holiday book — with choices ranging from lift-the-flap board books to Christmas- and other-holiday themed picture books to holiday-themed graphic novels, joke books, and chapter books for middle graders and teens/ young adults. We also re-stocked our inventory of Read Think Thrive Bags for kids who are diagnosed with cancer.

We are STILL in need of more holiday-themed books to be able to offer them to kids on the oncology and neurology floor on the inpatient side in the coming weeks! If you would like to donate a book, please CLICK HERE to access our amazon wish list. All books will be sent directly to ECBC, and bookplates will be added with donor names.

THANK YOU for helping hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with books and reading!


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Outpatient Delivery Day!

Today was our monthly outpatient delivery day at CHOC Children’s Hospital, and we delivered a TON of books! We provided the Hyundai Cancer Institute with 54 of our Read Think Thrive book bags for kids who are newly diagnosed with cancer (each bag containing 10 new books + art supplies and book-specific crafting ideas). The hospital is having a record high number of cancer diagnoses this year — and we are trying to keep up so that kids can start off their battles with age-appropriate and high-quality literature that nourishes their cognitive health. We also delivered 200 books to refill our libraries at the Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic. Which amounts to a total of 760 new books donated today for kids battling cancer and other life-altering conditions.  Thank you to all of our donors who allow us to continue to support oncology kids’ thrivership with books and reading! To contribute a December holiday themed book for next month’s outpatient delivery, click HERE.


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BOO-ks for Treats at CHOC, Part 1

Yesterday we delivered 357 Halloween books to the Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic at CHOC Children’s Hospital. The books included everything from silly lift-the-flap pumpkin books for toddlers to beginning readers, picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books with fun Halloween-themed stories to joke books and creepy nonfiction/fact books for reluctant readers to anthologies of spooky stories and Halloween-themed horror for teens. As such, all toddlers, kids, and teens will get to select a new Halloween book when they visit OPI or clinic. In addition, yesterday and all month our volunteers on the inpatient side of the hospital are reading Halloween-themed books during their bedside reading sessions with Oncology and Neurology patients on the 5th floor. There’s so much terrific children’s Halloween literature, and it’s so fun to share it with CHOC kiddos in October!.

We are looking forward to our even larger Halloween book donation at the end of the week to the inpatient side of CHOC for their annual trick-or-treating event on October 31st. Until then, we are busy preparing 220 Halloween-themed book bags!


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Outpatient Book Delivery Day!

Today was book re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center as well as at the Oncology Clinic. We delivered 295 new books so that patients can continue to pick out a great book at every outpatient visit. Thanks to all of our donors who allow us to continue to support oncology kids’ thrivership with books and reading! To help ECBC fund next month’s delivery, please join in on our BOOK IT annual fundraiser and participate in the Run 5 Donate 5 Nominate 5 Challenge — link to learn more and donate is www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022.


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Outpatient book delivery day!

Re-stocking day at our mini gifting libraries at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC)‘s Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology Clinic. We delivered 400 new, high-quality books so that kids can select one at every outpatient visit! Thanks to all our donors who allow us to continue to make this happen!