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

Tag Archives: BOOks4Treats


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Halloween Book Drive!

October is here, and so it’s time for our annual Halloween book drive! ECBC is so excited that our BOO-ks for Treats Halloween book give-away is finally back as part of CHOC’s trick-or-treating event! This event holds a very special place in our organization’s heart, especially ECBC co-founder Ethan’s. Ethan was diagnosed with cancer a few days before Halloween in 2014, and on Halloween day Ethan had his port surgically placed in his chest, started chemotherapy, and also dressed up and went trick-or-treating in the CHOC lobby at dozens of fun booths giving away candy and small toys. A year later, we founded ECBC and then BOO-ks for Treats, so that CHOC patients could also trick-or-treat for literary candy (aka books)! During Covid, we had to deliver Halloween books “reverse trick-or-treating” style, in bags to patient rooms — which was not nearly as fun. So we are thrilled to be back!

Which means that we need a TON of Halloween-themed books for patients of all ages! Spefically, we need about 500 books for the trick-or-treating event, and then another several hundred for our outpatient gifting library carts. Please help us if you can! To donate, you can scan the QR code below or go to bit.ly/Halloweenbooks4ECBC to purchase a book off our Halloween Wish List on Amazon. All books will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor names. We need books of all types — from board books and picture books to easy chapter books, middle grade chapter books, graphic novels, and teen/young adult fiction. THANK YOU for providing literary joy to kids who are stuck in the hospital on Halloween!


bit.ly/Halloweenbooks4ECBC


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BOO-ks for Treats at CHOC, Part 2

Today, was CHOC’s annual trick-or-treating event for all kids who are inpatient on Halloween. ECBC delivered 225 Halloween bags filled with two books per patient (so, 450 books), with all books being high-quality Halloween-themed and curated by the age and gender of the recipient. Book bags are also being given to kids visiting the ER through the evening of Halloween — hopefully they add some literary cheer on a night that no kid wants to end up in the ER! These 450 books, along with the 357 delivered to CHOC Outpatient last week, amount to more than 800 Halloween books delivered to CHOC patients!

On this day eight years ago, Ethan’s (ECBC’s co-founder) port was surgically placed in his chest and he received his first dose of chemo, beginning his 3.5 years of treatment for Leukemia. On this day, he also dressed up in a Halloween costume with his siblings and trick-or-treated in the hospital lobby. So Halloween at CHOC has always held a special place in our heart, and being able to contribute halloween books to this event is a treat for ECBC as well. THANK YOU to all of our book donors who contributed to our Halloween book drive. A special shout out to Orange Chamber of Commerce, Fenny’s Flowers, Andersen Elementary School, and Brian and Carrie Bullard for your significant contributions! Thank you also to our $500 level BOOK IT donors who each funded approximately 50 books of this donation. All donors were recognized with their names on respective bookplates in each book. Happy Halloween!

Halloween storytime happened today as well in patient rooms!


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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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THANK YOU Andersen Elementary School!

Andersen Elementary School in Newport Beach hosted a coin drive for ECBC alongside their school book fair. With the funds collected, they were able to purchase 102 new Halloween books for our Halloween book gifting at CHOC next week! THANK YOU Andersen Elementary for supporting ECBC and for helping us get closer to the significant number of books we need to collect!


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It’s Book Delivery Day!

It’s book delivery day at CHOC Outpatient Infusion (OPI) Center and CHOC’s Oncology Clinic! We refilled our gifting libraries with approximately 300 new books for infants through teen/young adults, which included a ton of Halloween-theme books for kids who visit Oncology or OPI in the next week. We also re-stocked inventory of our Read + Think + Thrive Bags for kids newly diagnosed with cancer (which amount to too many diagnoses this month). And, we’re looking forward to our large Halloween book delivery for CHOC’s reverse trick or treating event next week! If you want to get in a last minute donation, you can do so by clicking HERE.