Today was our monthly Outpatient Gifting Library re-stocking day at CHOC Children’s Hospital’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. We re-stocked our bins with 315 new books for patients of all ages, so that every time patients visit CHOC for a chemo infusion or cancer clinic check-up, they can select a book to keep. We work hard to ensure that we provide a great variety of book types so that there’s something of interest for everyone — including graphic novels for reluctant readers, informational texts for the kiddos who prefer nonfiction fact books, and a variety of poetry anthologies ranging from the silly poetry of Shel Silverstein to the more mature and emotional poems of Poet Laureate Ada Limon. While we rarely get to witness the patients on the outpatient side select their books, today we had the privilege of catching cancer warrior “B” scan the options, choose a touch-and-feel board book about sharks as well as an anthology of Avengers stories, and sit down in the OPI lobby to start “reading”. Keep reading and thriving, Superhero B!

If you haven’t yet contributed to ECBC’s annual fundraiser and would like to help us sustain our monthly outpatient gifting programs, as well as our inpatient book and reading programs at CHOC, please consider making a monetary donation at runsignup.com/BOOKIT2024. Thank you — we depend on our community to keep it all going!