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: HospitalizedKidsNeedBooksToo


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Thank you NLYM Tustin Class of 2020!

Yesterday Ethan attended the National League of Young Men Tustin Class of 2020’s meeting and received a terrific donation of 230 new books for Ethan & Choco’s Book Club! 65 of these were Halloween books and will be added to our Books for Treats collection for our Halloween event at CHOC tomorrow, and the rest will be added to our lending and gifting libraries (with bookplates on every book indicating that NYLM Tustin is the donor). What a fantastic mix of books of all types your donors chose! Thank you Class of 2020 for this awesome book drive. And a big thank you to Aidan Miller for your awesome job organizing the book drive and introducing Ethan yesterday!! We appreciate this so very much, as these are the kinds of significant donations we’ll need on a regular basis to create a sustainable library at CHOC — a library where half of the books will always need to be replaced because so much will be gifted (due to germs and sanitation rules, patients being discharged, etc). Thank you NYLM!!!

 

national league of young men


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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.


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Orange County Kids Book Festival Was a Success!

Ethan & Choco’s Book Club had the best time at the 2017 Orange County Children’s Book Festival today! Ethan worked hard to raise awareness by sharing his story, we met many authors and received generous donations from them, received donations from festival-goers who bought books at the festival to donate to ECBC, and sold some ECBC merchandise! Thank you to Girl Scout Troop #3115 for walking around the festival ALL DAY collecting books from

Thank you Troop #3115

various booths! And thank you to our friends who stopped by to support — We appreciate you! IMG_8002

Thank you Troop #3115!


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Ethan’s Book Flash #5

Here’s Ethan’s Book Flash #5, his request for a specific title that he wants to make sure is in the library that ECBC is building at CHOC Children’s Hospital! The title of this featured book is What Should Danny Do?, by Adir and Ganit Levy. Please check out his video and consider donating this book or any of the other books on the ECBC Wish List on Amazon (link below).  Books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC.  Thank you!

Click HERE for Book Flash #5.

Click HERE to go to ECBC’s Wish List on Amazon.


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Sip, Shop, & Support at Blue Moon Boutique was a Success!

Thank you Patti and Barbara!

Thank you to friends and family who made time in your busy weekday schedules to attend Blue Moon’s Sip, Shop, & Support evening! It looked like lots of fun clothing, jewelry, and household items were being purchased — and champagne and yummy treats being enjoyed as well (Thank you Barbara Lieberman-Jones for providing)! Thank you also to Compendium for the awesome stack of books you donated — they are such great, beautiful picture books that hospitalized kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital will LOVE! And a tremendous thank you to Patti and Blue Moon Boutique for hosting such a wonderful event — which will keep giving as we use the proceeds to bring reading to kids at CHOC who otherwise don’t have access to books. We appreciate the support so much. 

If anyone could not attend last night’s event, there are still two days left in September during which your purchases benefit ECBC! If you can, go check out this beautiful store!! (I walked away with a couple gorgeous candles and some super-funny kitchen towels!) 


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Another Fun Super Book Give-Away at CHOC Children’s Hospital!

We had so much fun at CHOC this afternoon with MaxLove Project and Donovan’s Smile! So many patients came down today — to choose an awesome backpack filled with supplies (Donovan’s Smile), to craft a pencil case (MaxLove Project…AND to select a book to keep!  We passed out about 85 books to patients and siblings, with gifted books ranging from board books for toddlers to longer chapter for middle schoolers and high schoolers. We also had children’s author @Alane Adams join us, who gave away signed copies of both her thief picture books as well as her Legends of Orkney chapter book series. A parent of a four-year-old whose son had just been diagnosed four days ago shared that they had no books in their room on the oncology floor — she seemed so genuinely grateful to receive a stack from ECBC to share with her son! We can’t wait for our next Super Book Give-Away at next month’s BeSuper party! 

 


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Ethan delivers another Read+Think+Thrive Box to a new Leukemia Warrior

Ethan delivered another Read+Think+Thrive (RTT) Box yesterday at CHOC Children’s Hospital, this time to a 6 1/2 year old boy named Alexander who was just diagnosed with Leukemia this week. The box contained some of our favorite books for first grade boys, including picture books, a beginning reading book, transitional chapter books, a family chapter book read aloud, and a nonfiction book. It also contained a RTT Toolbox with art supplies and Ethan’s RTT Challenge to respond through art to one of the books in the box. And, Ethan enclosed a personal note advising the new Leukemia warrior to “Keep reading” through treatment.

As was the case last month when we delivered a reading box to Carter after he relapsed, Ethan was so proud to be able to deliver Alexander’s book box. Selecting the books, writing the note, carrying the heavy box while he himself is tired  due to the effects of steroids this week. He’s glowing as he does it all, knowing so well how much books have helped him get through his own battle.

After this delivery, we decided that we’re going to reach out to CHOC to figure out how to get RTT Boxes in the hands of every newly diagnosed oncology patient at CHOC. This will be another way to get books in the hands of hospitalized kids as we await volunteer approval for our bedside reading program. And it will be putting books in kids hands at a time when they need it most — when they feel the worst, are missing school, and likely have no books with them.

Please stay posted as we work with CHOC to systematically get our Read+Think+Thrive Boxes to every kid who is diagnosed with cancer. And for ways that you can help us do that!

Thank you Girl Scout Troop #3115 for providing our first supply of reading boxes!! 

 


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Ethan’s August Title Talk (and July Thank-Yous)

Here’s Ethan’s August 2017 Title Talk (#8), the list of books he hopes will be donated to ECBC in the month of August! Please donate hardcover (for the permanent Lending Library) or paperback (for the Gifting Library for kids in isolation) versions of these books, or any new book, from ECBC’s Amazon Wish List and help us build a library at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Books will be sent directly to ECBC. The link to the wish list is: https://amzn.com/w/BLD7UEVPPPO

In this video, Ethan also thanks our July book donors, including Girl Scout Troop #4204, those who donated books via Amazon, donations made in lieu of gifts for a child’s birthday, and our awesome local bookstore (Once Upon a Storybook) customers for their ongoing monthly donations. Thank you so much to our donors for continuing to keep the book donations coming!

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


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Please Donate Storytime Huxley for Kids Battling Cancer!

Please check out Ethan’s video request for donations of Storytime Huxley — a plush bear who also tells stories! As part of ECBC’s efforts to bring reading to hospitalized kids, we want to gift Huxley to kids battling cancer and other life-threatening conditions! We also hope to include him in our Read+Think+Thrive boxes for SuperKids battling cancer around the country!

Huxley can be donated easily by clicking on the link to our Amazon Wish List. Huxley, and any other book donations from this list, will be sent directly to ECBC. 


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Ethan’s July Title Talk (and June Thank-Yous)

Here’s Ethan’s July 2017 Title Talk (#7), the list of books he hopes will be donated to ECBC in the month of July! Please donate hardcover (for the permanent Lending Library) or paperback (for the Gifting Library for kids in isolation) versions of these books, or any new book, from ECBC’s Amazon Wish List and help us build a library at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Books will be sent directly to ECBC. The link to the wish list is: https://amzn.com/w/BLD7UEVPPPO

In this video, Ethan also thanks our June book donors, including those who donated books via Amazon, donations made in lieu of gifts for a child’s birthday, and our awesome local bookstore (Once Upon a Storybook) customers for their ongoing monthly donations. Thank you so much to our donors for continuing to keep the book donations coming!

Ethan also mentions his buddy Carter, a 6-year-old fellow Leukemia warrior who just received the devastating news that he has relapsed — meaning his Leukemia is back. Carter is back inpatient, beginning his battle again at day 1 (after 648 days of ongoing treatment). This (relapse) is the fear that all of us cancer parents live with daily, throughout treatment and for years beyond. Carter’s amazing community of support (called “CarterStrong”) is holding a “CarterStrong Bucket List Book Drive” to fulfill Carter’s bucket list wish (a kindergarten writing assignment) to “read lots of books this summer”. Carter is going to share the books that are collected with other kids who are currently on the oncology floor at CHOC, and the remaining books will be donated to ECBC. If you would like to donate in Carter’s honor, as a way to support Carter’s new fight, please indicate this in the gift message part of your order on Amazon. We’ll make sure the ECBC bookplate acknowledges that the donation is from you in honor of Carter!

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


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Thank you Amie and Aidan for asking for books for ECBC instead of birthday gifts!!

All 138 books came with these bookplates, signed by each kid donor!

We just received a super awesome book donation!! Twins Amie and Aidan (from Irvine, CA) recently celebrated their 8th birthdays, and they asked for books to be donated to the hospital library that ECBC is building in lieu of gifts for themselves! We met this amazing family on Sunday when they gave us this large, super heavy box of books — 138 new, high-quality paperback and hardcover titles, mostly selected from our Amazon.com Wish List! This is definitely our most significant personal (non-institutional) donation yet!  The family even used our logo to make their own ECBC book plates, personalized with the birthday kids’ names and signed by each party guest. Thank you so much Amie and Aidan for thinking of ECBC and for your generosity. We are so very honored!