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: HolidayBookDrive


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Holiday Reading for CHOC Patients!

On Monday we delivered several hundred December holiday-themed books to our outpatient libraries, and yesterday we filled up our Gifting Library Cart on the inpatient side at CHOC for kids who are stuck in the hospital over the holidays. We also added wonderful holiday books to each age category of our Read Aloud Wagons. Thank you to Bedside Readers Mary Kay and Suzanne for launching holiday storytimes in patient rooms yesterday! Patient favorite of the day: Tough Cookie: A Christmas Story (by Edward Hemingway).

We will continue to re-stock our gifting cart with holiday books for the month of December as long as we have inventory…but we will go through the books fast since the hospital is at full capacity. Please consider donating a book from our holiday wish list! Click HERE to access the list.


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Thank you Jack & Jill Guild and Arvida Book Co!

A big thank you to the Jack & Jill Guild of CHOC Children’s Hospital for a successful “Happy Hour Book Drive” yesterday at Arvida. In just a couple of hours, many awesome new books were purchased and donated (number TBD, since many were ordered online), which will get delivered to patients over the next few weeks. ECBC so appreciates the Jack & Guild’s ongoing support! A special shout out to Hoppy Meyer for her work coordinating the event. And thank you to Arvida owners Sam and Mike for partnering with ECBC to help provide books for patients at CHOC!

Arvida collects book donations for ECBC on an ongoing basis, so please stop by the store if you can to purchase a new book to donate! It’s a huge win-win for all as you will also be supporting a truly awesome local Tustin independent bookstore with new and used books, a very cool coffee bar with terrific coffee, and cozy seating to hang and read and chat!

THANK YOU for your support in helping hospitalized kids to thrive through the holidays with books and reading!


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ECBC at Miracle Manor

Ethan & Choco’s Book Club was so honored to be part of Miracles for Kids’ holiday party for CHOC patients and families living at Miracle Manor (a home subsidized by Miracles For Kids for low-income CHOC families with critically ill children). ECBC Board member and bedside reader Mary Kay provided an engaging holiday-themed storytime for the kids, and then along with Santa, Mary Kay passed out holiday book bags to all 33 patients and siblings living at Miracle Manor — with all bags containing two books curated by the age, gender, and interests of each child. We loved adding books and reading to these families’ holiday festivities (and how amazing that during the festivities, Miracles for Kids volunteers were busy decorating each of the family’s apartments for Christmas!). THANK YOU Miracles for Kids for letting Ethan & Choco’s Book Club participate in this magical event, thank you Mary Kay for making time to be there for the kids, and THANK YOU to all who donated holiday-themed books for the kiddos!  

If you haven’t had a chance to donate a holiday book, ECBC is still running our December holiday book drive. Click HERE to donate.


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It’s Giving Tuesday! Please help!

In the spirit of #GivingTuseday and the upcoming holiday season, please consider purchasing a book from ECBC’s December holiday wish list (CLICK HERE). All books will go directly to hospitalized kids — who are either inpatient at CHOC, visiting the outpatient oncology clinic or the infusion center for chemo, or patients and siblings who are living at Miracle for Kids’ subsidized housing. Donate now and patients will start receiving holiday books next week! All books donated will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor name.


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Outpatient Holiday Book Delivery!

Today, we delivered a TON (244, 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 as well as teens and 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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The Beginning of Holiday Book Gifting!

With the start of December, ECBC began our holiday-themed book gifting to kids who are on the inpatient side of the hospital at CHOC. ECBC volunteers are wheeling around our gifting library cart (see below) to offer patients age-appropriate Christmas and other December holiday themed books — from Christmas-themed board books, picture books, joke books and graphic novels to contemporary holiday-themed fiction for teens and young adults. Since our volunteers were not allowed in the hospital last year due to COVID restrictions, we weren’t able to personally deliver any books to kids on the inpatient side. It’s so wonderful to be back to offering the kids choice and variety, which let’s them select based on their needs and interests!

We have enough holiday books to get us through this week, but we still need many more (for all book types and ages) to get us through the month and to also to give to kids who visit Outpatient Oncology, the Outpatient Infusion Center, and kids living at Miracle Manor (Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC families). To donate, please visit our December holiday wish list on Amazon by CLICKING HERE. You can also donate a new holiday book by visiting Arvida Book Co in Tustin and buying a book to put in their donation box.

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


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Holiday Book Drive!

Today is December 1st, which means we need books to spread some literary joy to kids stuck in the hospital over the holidays! Please consider donating a book from ECBC’s December Holiday Book Wish List for our holiday book gifting at CHOC Children’s Hospital! We need books for all ages!

CLICK HERE to donate!


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Storytime with Ethan & Choco: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins

Happy 1st night of Hanukkah from ECBC! Here’s this week’s storytime with Ethan & Choco: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, a Hanukkah family favorite and a wonderful read-aloud for all. To donate this book or another holiday book for CHOC patients, below are the links to our wish lists. We still need many books for our upcoming holiday book deliveries to CHOC and Miracle Manor!

CLICK HERE for CHOC Wish List.

CLICK HERE for Miracle Manor Wish List

Thank you for helping hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with books and reading!


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ECBC’s First Holiday Book Donation of the Season

We just delivered our first of several holiday book donations to CHOC Children’s Hospital! This one went to the Outpatient Infusion Center, where kids (largely oncology patients) spend a couple hours to all day for infusions– we re-stocked our outpatient library cart with almost 200 December holiday-themed books! We just love spreading some literary joy with high-quality books that look fun enough to get kids to put their screens down for just a bit!

We have a few more holiday book gifting commitments in the coming weeks — including to CHOC’s inpatient side and to Miracle Manor (Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC patients and families). Our deadlines for delivery are coming up in the 10 -12 days and we’ll need to purchase books soon to fill gaps — so PLEASE donate now/soon if you can!!!

Click HERE to donate a book for patients and siblings living at Miracle Manor (books on this list are selected/curated for specific kids based on each child’s age and interest).

Click HERE to to donate a book for kids who are inpatient at CHOC Children’s Hospital.

THANK YOU for helping ECBC to help hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with high-quality books and reading!


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Ethan’s December Title Talk (and November Thank-You’s)

Here’s Ethan’s December 2017 Title Talk (#12), the list of books he hopes will be donated to ECBC in the month of December! This list features Ethan’s favorite holiday books that he wants to make sure are available in our Lending Library.  Books can be purchased easily off our ECBC Wish List on Amazon, and will be sent directly to ECBC. The link to the wish list is: https://amzn.com/w/BLD7UEVPPPO.

If you want to donate a holiday-themed book for our December book give-away events, please click on this link to access our extensive wish list of holiday books that honor a variety of backgrounds and traditions: http://a.co/fedin6F. Holiday-themed books are especially important for kids stuck in the hospital during the holiday season, since hospitalized kids often are isolated from school, community and even family celebrations. Good holiday books with rich stories can spark good holiday-themed conversations, help families create  special holiday memories around stories, and help kids travel outside their hospital room to holiday celebrations around the world.

Also in this video, Ethan thanks our amazing donors in the month of November, including the CarterStrong community, Tarbut V’Torah, Danielle Clawson, Bill Bellaty, and Once Upon a Storybook customers. We are so thankful for these generous and significant donations!

Click here for Ethan’s November Title Talk video.
Click here to purchase books to donate off our Amazon Wish List.
Click here to purchase books to donate off our Amazon HOLIDAY Book Wish List.