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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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!


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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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Thank you Orange Chamber of Commerce!

Thank you to the Orange Chamber of Commerce for conducting a Halloween book drive in the month of September, and of course thank you to everyone who contributed to it. They collected a terrific collection of 119 new Halloween-themed books, which gives us a great start towards the 600 books that we need for our BOO-ks for Treats Halloween event at CHOC Children’s Hospital. And a huge THANK YOU to Orange Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Elizabeth Holloman for all your work to organize and oversee the book drive — sharing the wish list, opening all the packages, bookplating with donor names; we appreciate your help so very much!!

If anyone didn’t get a chance to donate a Halloween book and would like to, we still need hundreds! You can select a book off our list and it will come directly to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club: https://a.co/8wsb23B


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Halloween Book Drive for CHOC Children’s Hospital!

It’s October, which means it’s time to turn to our Halloween book drive for our 6th annual BOO-ks for Treats event at CHOC Children’s Hospital. This is always a hard ask immediately after our BOOK IT fundraiser. However, this event has become a significant part of CHOC’s Halloween celebration, it is especially important to our founder Ethan, and the number of books that we need for it is quite hefty (approximately 600 new books). If you didn’t get a chance to donate to BOOK IT, please listen to Ethan’s video and consider purchasing a book or two from our Halloween-themed Amazon wish list. Especially since we only made it to halfway of our fundraising goal for BOOK IT, your help with this is even more important. Patients love getting high-quality Halloween themed books along with their usual candy and trinkets, so we absolutely LOVE being able to provide “literary candy” for the kids! All books purchased from this wish list will go directly to ECBC, and bookplates with donor names will go on every book. THANK YOU!

CLICK HERE FOR AMAZON WISH LIST LINK.


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Halloween Book Drive for CHOC Children’s Hospital!

It’s October 1st, which means it’s time to turn from our annual BOOK IT fundraiser to our 5th annual Halloween book drive — a difficult thing to do right on the heels of BOOK IT, but usually BOOK IT ends on race day in the first week of September, not on September 30. We need approximately 500-600 books for patients who are stuck in the hospital on Halloween, as well as for kids who are visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center and the Oncology clinic around that time. Please listen to Ethan’s video and consider donating a book if you didn’t get a chance to contribute to BOOK IT! Before Covid we received most our books for this from school book fairs and school book drives, which isn’t happening right now, so we could use all the support we can get to make this happen! Especially since we only made it to almost halfway of our fundraising goal for BOOK IT, your help with this is even more important. Patients LOVE getting high-quality Halloween themed books along with their usual candy and trinkets, so we absolutely LOVE being able to provide “literary candy” for the kids! All books purchased from this wish list will go directly to ECBC, and bookplates with donor names will go on every book. THANK YOU!

CLICK HERE FOR AMAZON WISH LIST LINK.


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ECBC’s Halloween Book Drive

This is the last week to donate to ECBC’s Halloween Book Drive for our annual BOO-KS for Treats at CHOC Children’s Hospital. Please click below to view Ethan’s video plug. You may CLICK HERE to purchase Halloween-themed books from our Amazon Wish List — all books purchased will be sent directly to ECBC and donor names written on bookplates.

Click above to view


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Please Help Us with our Halloween-Themed Book Drive!

Now that it’s October, we are starting to collect Halloween-themed books for ECBC’s 2nd Annual BOO-KS for Treats at CHOC Children’s Hospital! CHOC’s Halloween trick-or-treating event is a special event for Ethan, as he participated in it just two days after he was diagnosed with Leukemia and the same day that he had surgery to place his port and begin chemotherapy. CHOC has 100+ booths for patients and siblings to trick or treat at (candy, toys, Build-a-Bear), and ECBC’s BOO-KS for Treats booth let’s them trick-or-treat for new Halloween books! We need 300-400 books for patients and sibs of all ages. Please click here to access our Halloween-themed wish list. All books purchased will be sent directly to ECBC and stamped with donor name. Thank you for your help!! #HalloweenBookDrive #BOOKSFORTREATS#HospitalizedKidsNeedBooksToo


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Ethan’s Halloween Book Drive Was a Success!

WOW — what a collection of Halloween-themed books we have for our Books for Treats booth tomorrow at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Over the last few weeks, we collected a total of 371 new, high-quality Halloween books of all kinds (board books, picture books, beginning readers, easy chapter books, and middle grade chapter books). Thank you to Arroyo Elementary School for the 156 Halloween books you donated (as well as the additional 44 non-Halloween books you donated this month) — Principal Sheyka, we appreciate your support on social media and on campus so much!

Thank you also to the National League of Young Men Tustin (Class of 2020), and especially Aidan Miller,  for the 64 Halloween-themed books that you collected as part of your terrific book drive (230 books total).

And thank you to Once Upon a Storybook for the beautiful display you created in your store this month to support our Halloween book drive, as well as for the 27 Halloween-themed books your customers purchased to donate!  And finally, thank you Amazon customers for the 124 books you donated by purchasing off our Halloween Wish List. A special thank you to the following for the significant number of books you donated: Sharon and Tod Paris (56 books), Ashley Netsky (23 books), and Rob and Brooke Lieberman (20 books). We easily made our goal of 250-300 books, and we can’t wait to give these to CHOC patients tomorrow. Thank you everyone for your support!!! 


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Please help us collect a few more books for Ethan’s Halloween Book Drive!

Orange County – This is the LAST WEEK of Ethan’s Halloween book drive for ECBC’s Books for Treats event on Halloween at CHOC Children’s Hospital! If you haven’t donated yet, please consider donating a new Halloween book to help us get to our goal of 300 books so kids who are inpatient on Halloween can trick-or-treat for books! Ways to donate are (1) visit Once Upon a Storybook and purchase a book to add to our donation box at the store, (2) put a new book in ECBC’s large donation box by the front office at Arroyo Elementary School, and (3) visit our Halloween Book Drive wish list on Amazon at http://a.co/1o8eo3B to buy a book that is sent directly to ECBC. Thank you so much for your support! 


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Ethan’s Halloween Book Drive

Please help Ethan collect Halloween-themed books for kids are inpatient CHOC Children’s Hospital during Halloween! Every year CHOC holds an awesome trick-or-treating event for patients and siblings, and this year ECBC is hosting “Books for Treats” — our own booth where we will give away Halloween books! There are several ways you can help, including:

  •   Purchasing books off our Halloween Book Wish List on Amazon.com. Click here to access it.
  •   Visiting Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin, where you can purchase Halloween books to put in our donation basket at the store.
  • Bring books to Arroyo Elementary to put in ECBC’s book donation box.
  • Visit the Arroyo book fair and purchase/donate Halloween-themed books there.

Remember, all books must be brand new.  

Check out Ethan’s video to learn more. If you haven’t supported ECBC in a while, this is a great one to jump in on because it has special meaning to Ethan (see video) and it comes at the three year anniversary of his diagnosis.