Ethan & Choco's Book Club

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

Tag Archives: BOOKS4CHOC


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LAST DAY OF BOOK IT!

Today is the last day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and it is also the final day of ECBC’s annual BOOK IT Fundraiser! We are just under 50% of our fundraising goal, so if anyone has intended to donate but hasn’t yet had the chance, PLEASE consider doing so now — it takes just a few minutes! Today we feature two of the many oncology kiddos who have benefited from our Read Think Thrive Bag program: Carter, who is no longer with us but his love of reading impacts ECBC through his amazing community’s CarterStrongForever book drives; and Blake, a current oncology warrior who is reading and thriving through a marathon of a battle with brain cancer. These bags (a mini library of ten new books curated by the age of the child + book crafting supplies) go to every child at CHOC infant/toddler through teen/young adult who is diagnosed with cancer, and the goal is to someday get these to all kids who are diagnosed with cancer throughout the U.S.– a hefty goal for our tiny nonprofit with a cost of approximately $150/bag. New cancer diagnoses at CHOC this year are the highest they have been in the history of the hospital — at 94 to date since January, we need additional funding to keep up!

If you haven’t yet donated and would like to help us continue to fund our Read Think Thrive Bag program for kids just diagnosed with cancer , we would so appreciate your support! Donate at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022. We know first hand the benefits of books and reading through treatment and are passionate about making sure other patients have the same opportunities to thrive — but we need your help! Please share this post if you can!

Click image above to donate


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Two Days Left of BOOK IT!

There are two days left of ECBC’s annual BOOK IT fundraiser, and we are at just 40% of our fundraising goal. We are hoping for a strong finish in our final two days as we need to do significantly better to keep funding all of our book and reading programs and CHOC Children’s Hospital. Each day of these last few days, I have been sharing a photo of an Oncology kiddo at CHOC whom our programs have benefited. Today we have two featured warriors: Blake, holding one of the two Halloween-themed books he received from ECBC’s annual BOO-ks for Treats event at CHOC (where we donate approximately 600 new Halloween books for patients toddler through young adult); and Isabella, an oncology patient living at Miracle Manor (Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC families) who just received books from ECBC at the Miracle Manor Christmas party (ECBC provides holiday books for all kids living at Miracle Manor, picked out for each child by their personal interests). If you haven’t yet donated and would like to help us continue to fund our book gifting programs for oncology kids stuck in the hospital over the holidays , we would so appreciate your support! Donate at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022. Even the smallest donations will help us to keep all of our programs going!

Click image above to donate.


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Final Four Days of BOOK IT!

There are just four days left of ECBC’s annual BOOK IT fundraiser, and we are just shy of 2/5 of our fundraising goal. We are hoping for a strong finish in these last few days as we need to do significantly better to keep funding all of our book and reading programs and CHOC Children’s Hospital. Each day of these last few days, I am sharing a photo of an Oncology kiddo at CHOC whom our programs have benefited. Here’s today’s featured warrior: a child on the inpatient side who is being read to by Mary Kay, one of ECBC’s amazing bedside readers/literacy coach experts who shares quality literature and reads aloud in a way that models and nurtures literacy skills and rich dialogue. Oncology patients are often not attending school and missing literature-based classroom experiences, and they also often receive chemo that affects their neurocognitive functioning — so this program aims to provide cognitive benefits in addition to social and emotional ones! Our bedside reading program depends on hardcover books for read alouds, paperback books that can be gifted, art supplies for book-inpspired crafting, and other support materials such as bookmarks, motivational reading bracelets, parent “how to support literacy through treatment” pamphlets and various operational costs including off-site storage of books. If you haven’t yet donated and would like to help us continue to fund our inpatient bedside reading program, we would so appreciate your support. Donate at www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2022.

Click image above to donate


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THANK YOU Hicks Canyon!

THANK YOU Hicks Canyon Elementary families for the 83 books that you purchased for ECBC at your book fair this past week! We appreciate your support so much, and we can’t wait to get all these great books to patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital! A special shout out to Tina Jussal for your making this happen despite such short notice!


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THANK YOU Baum Squad!

A HUGE thank you to Baum Ortho for this amazing donation of 160 new books! Baum families who donated, you did a terrific job at picking out highly popular titles and so much variety — we received books in every book type category! We are so very grateful for ECBC’s ongoing partnership with Baum Ortho. It makes a big difference for us to have these awesome books coming in regularly, which go right to oncology and other patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital!


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THANK YOU Olga!

How awesome is this?! In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and Hispanic Heritage Month, Olga Hernandez conducted a Spanish-language book drive amongst her family and friends. She just delivered 86 terrific new Spanish books, bookplated with her donors’ names and ready to be delivered to kids at CHOC! This is super helpful, as we are constantly in need of Spanish-language books, yet we rarely have any in our inventory. THANK YOU so very much, Olga! for taking this on and helping us in this much needed way! And thank you Fenny Meyling Kokenge for connecting ECBC with yet another amazing supporter!

Ogla’s helper Waffles signed the bookplates of anonymous donations!


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We are halfway through BOOK IT and need your help!

It’s more than halfway through Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which means it’s more than halfway through our annual BOOK IT fundraiser! And we’ve only raised 1/4 of our fundraising goal — a goal we need to reach to be able to continue all our book gifting and reading programs at CHOC,  as well as to grow our impact to reach more kids on more patient floors.  This past week, a Facebook memory popped up from September 15th, six years ago. It was a post with a link to this video of Ethan giving his 259th “Book Look”, which was how we collected our first few thousand books after initially launching ECBC. Ethan was  still in the midst of treatment, and as is obvious, he is visibly not feeling well (link to video: https://youtu.be/e742S_o5HvA). This video, of Ethan pushing through the discomfort caused by chemo and steroids, is a reminder of just how strongly he believed in the mission of ECBC and wanted to ensure that other kids going through treatment for cancer received the same benefits of books and reading. In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and our efforts to continue to help oncology patients and other hospitalized kids to continue to thrive w, please help us!

If you haven’t yet completed our Run5-Donate5-Nominate5- challenge, please click on the “Donate” button in this email to learn more and make a “multiple of 5” donation. If doing the challenge feels too difficult, of course you can simply donate! We need our community to keep on doing what we do!

Click on graphic above to access the BOOK IT donation site


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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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Storytime at Tiddlywinks!

We had so much fun this morning at Tiddlywinks in the Orange Circle, where Ethan led a storytime along with The Potting Shed owner Jack! Thank you to the kiddos (and their parents and grandparents) who attended, and THANK YOU to Tiddlywinks owner Jeannie for inviting Ethan to read. Tiddlywinks is hosting a book drive for ECBC for the month of August, so if you’re in the area, please consider stopping by this wonderful toy (+book) store to purchase a children’s book to donate!


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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!


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THANK YOU to these amazing 7th graders!

A HUGE thank you to these eight (one is missing from photo) seventh graders at Grace Lutheran School in Huntington Beach for choosing ECBC for their service spring project for a second year in a row! They ran a terrific school-wide book drive, including hosting a book donation table for a week+ before and after school, making flyers and book collection boxes, creating their own promotional video/commercial to share online, and sorting/counting all of the books. In sum, they collected a total of 217 new books for kids of all ages, which is especially impressive given this school’s super small student population. Also, a huge shout out to Joi Vutpakdi for rallying the kids behind our cause as well as all of her work to help the kids make their book drive a success. And of course, thank you to all the Grace Lutheran families for all of your generous book donations. THANK YOU GRACE LUTHERAN!


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Outpatient re-stocking day!

Yesterday we re-stocked our libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and at the Oncology Clinic — 360 new books for patients of all ages to select every time they visit the hospital. THANK YOU so much to the handful of schools and local businesses that took the initiative to hold their own book drives. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with this volume of new book gifting without your support ($2000-$4000 value in books per month).


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THANK YOU KRISTIN AND STUDIO 17!

A HUGE thank you to Kristin Chahbazian/Studio 17 for her super generous donation to ECBC! Recently, Kristin hosted a book drive at her Tustin-based salon where she asked her clients to donate books in lieu of giving her a monetary tip. Her amazing clients donated a total of 91 new books — mostly all popular, high-interest titles! What an amazing way to inspire community to support our cause — by turning her usual monetary tips into books for kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital! We are so very grateful for Kristin’s philanthropic heart!


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Outpatient Delivery Day!

Yesterday was our monthly book re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and Oncology Clinic. We delivered 350 new books — one of our largest donations ever in a single day! Kids now know that when they visit CHOC’s cancer clinic or the infusion center for an outpatient treatment, they get to pick a new book to keep. And some are even requesting specific titles to be there for their next visit!

To help ECBC continue to provide books and reading to oncology (and other) patients at CHOC, you can purchase a book to donate from our Amazon Wish List, which will be sent directly to ECBC (and bookplated with your name on it). Click HERE to access the wish list and donate.


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THANK YOU Baum Squad!

A HUGE THANK YOU to Dr. Baum and Baum Squad patients for collecting books for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! We are so happy to partnering with you again and for your ongoing support…it makes a big difference for us to have these awesome books coming in regularly, which go right to oncology and other patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital!


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MOST AWESOME School Donation To Date!

A HUGE thank you to Rossmoor Elementary School for donating 531 NEW BOOKS to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! This terrific school has a Harry Potter style house system for Knights — where the four Knight houses are engaged in friendly competition in academic and non-academic areas throughout the year, including philanthropic support of the community. What a wonderful way to create school community and motivate students! ECBC was so fortunate to be the recipient of their most recent community outreach project, where donation boxes were put out at the school for each of the Knight houses, and students purchased books to contribute by either ordering off an ECBC-provided Amazon wish list or buying books at their school book fair. We are blown away by the response, which amounts to the largest single book donation from a school that we have received and will provide 2-3 months of books for our inpatient and outpatient programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital. Congrats to House of Lancelot for contributing the most books at more than 200 new books donated!

THANK YOU Rossmoor families for rallying behind our cause. Thank you also to Kristin Moushon for thinking of ECBC and connecting us with your school. And, a special thank you to Rossmoor Principal Amy Coltey for your commitment to making community outreach part of your school’s culture and for all you did to make this book drive a great success! Go Knights!


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Thank you Guin Foss Elementary School!

THANK YOU Guin Foss Elementary for donating to ECBC last week at your book fair. We appreciate your support so much, and we can’t wait to get all these great books to patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital! A special shout out to Susie Alexander for your help organizing the book drive!


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THANK YOU ARROYO!

THANK YOU so much to Arroyo Elementary School for hosting a book drive for ECBC alongside your school book fair last week. And thank you to the Arroyo families who donated many awesome books!! all books will go directly to patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital who are battling cancer and other life-altering illnesses. A special shout out to Danielle Burton for coordinating the book drive!


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Today Was Re-Stocking Day!

Today we re-stocked our mini-libraries at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and CHOC’s Oncology Clinic. 215 new, high-quality books for patients of all ages were delivered, so that patients can select a book to read when they visit for a chemo infusion or other oncology care. Also, we brought sixteen more Read Think Thrive Bags which are delivered to kids as they are diagnosed with cancer (valued at ~$150 per bag) — which means many new diagnoses the past few weeks. Since these bags contain enough books to take kids through the initial months of diagnosis (+ art supplies and a “Read Think Thrive Challenge” from Ethan), we are grateful that ECBC can support kids’ cognitive health and thrivership during a time where this critical aspect of their development is so often neglected.

If you’d like to help ECBC sustain these book gifting programs, you can:

  • Visit Arvida Book Co in Old Towne Tustin to purhcase a book to donate (they have a box for donations)
  • Purchase a book from ECBC’s wish list on Amazon. All books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor name: CLICK HERE.
  • Make a monetary donation that will go directly toward purchasing needed books for patients at CHOC Children’s Hospital (mostly oncology and neurology patients, as well as others battling life-altering illness). CLICK HERE.

THANK YOU for helping ECBC help hospitalized kids to thrive with the help of books and reading!


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Stop by Arvida Book Co to donate a book!

We are so excited that the December holiday book drive at Arvida has turned into a regular thing! Arvida now has a book donation box for ECBC, so you can visit the store to purchase a children’s book to donate — as well as enjoy everything else the store has to offer, including a terrific selection of used and new adult books, locally made gifts and art , wonderful coffee, cozy seating and tables with chess games, and numerous in-person events such as book clubs and writers’ workshops. Purchasing a book here to donate is a win-win for ECBC, Arvida, CHOC Children’s Hospital, and our community! Bookplates are available at the store for donors to write in their name. Please remember that all books purchased for ECBC must be brand new!