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

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month! In honor of Ethan and his efforts to help kids thrive through treatment by creating a reading program and library at CHOC Children’s Library, please consider donating a special book or two! In this video, Ethan mentions why childhood cancer awareness month is so important, and he provides the list of ten books that he hopes are donated in the month of September. Please consider donating! You can do so by clicking on the link to ECBC’s Amazon Wish list which sends books directly to ECBC (click here), or by visiting Once Upon a Storybook in Tustin, which collects books that customers purchase to donate to ECBC. We need hardcover (for the permanent lending library) and paperback (for the Gifting Library for kids in isolation and for give-away events) versions of every book!

Thank you all so much for your donations!  We’re starting to get more books into the hands of patients, so we need the books to keep on coming!!

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


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ECBC’s Super Book Give-Away Was a Success!

ECBC had a terrific afternoon yesterday at our FIRST Super Book Give-Away alongside MaxLove Project at CHOC Children’s Hospital! We gave away approximately 70 books to hospitalized kids and their siblings, with our youngest recipient being 22 months and our oldest being a 14-year old boy who said he was allergic to reading but then found a book about Alcatraz that he walked away with eagerly. A CHOC nurse walked by and commented, “It is so great to see books in our lobby, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that!” And a parent of an oncology patient snuck away with a pile of books and whispered to me, “I have to home school my child now, but I always forget to bring books to the hospital. It is just never on my radar.” Both of these remarks confirm why we’re so passionate about ECBC’s mission to bring books and reading to hospitalized kids! It was so fun to put books in kids’ hands, see them reading in the lobby, and watch them walk away excitedly with a new book about a topic of interest!

Because we’re still waiting to get through CHOC’s lengthy volunteer on-boarding process in order to start “Reading Aloud in Every Room” (our bedside reading program), we are working on other ways to get books into the hands of patients NOW! We plan to join MaxLove Project regularly for their monthly BeSuper parties at CHOC, and we are working on setting up other ways to bring reading to CHOC as well (ways that don’t require volunteer approval). To be able to gift books to kids at these events, we need the new books to keep coming in — so PLEASE keep donating if you can. Here’s the link to our Wish List on Amazon — books purchased from this list will be sent directly to ECBC. 

Thank you to Kids READ!, Saddleback Educational Publishing, and PBS SoCal for providing the books for this event!


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Ethan’s May 2017 Title Talk (and April Thank-You’s)

Twins Amie and Aidan give ECBC a HUGE donation of new books in honor of their birthday!!!

Here’s Ethan’s May 2017 Title Talk (#5), the list of books he hopes will be donated to ECBC in the month of May! 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

This awesome little Once Upon a Storybook customer is donating a book to ECBC in honor of her friend’s birthday!

In this video, Ethan also thanks all of our April book donors, including: Mrs. Stephanie Lukkes and her 2nd grade class, children’s author Salina Yoon for donating so many of her own books, 8-year-old twins Amie and Aidan for donating 138 new books rather than receiving birthday gifts, and of course Once Upon a Storybook for their ongoing monthly donations!  

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


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Ethan’s Book Flash #3, Book Scavenger (by Jennifer Bertman)

Here’s Ethan’s Book Flash #3, 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! 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 #3.

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


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Thank you Arroyo Ripple Kids for supporting ECBC!

Third grade Girl Scout Trop #3307 selling their unicorn-themed treats

Ethan, Caleb, and their buddies selling their homemade “Light Jars”

Maddy and her friends selling homemade “Stuff to Squish” — stress balls and slime!

Sophie Hsu, Sophie Ly-Pang, and Colin successfully selling the awesome clay charm jewelry they made!

These awesome kiddos did an amazing job raising money for ECBC at the Arroyo Ripple Kids Fair this week! Their unicorn-themed goodies, handmade clay charm jewelry, light jars, and “stuff to squish” brought in over $600 — thank you for helping to bring books and reading to hospitalized kids in our community!


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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!


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Ethan’s Book Flash #2, Save Me a Seat (by Sarah Weeks)

Here’s Ethan’s Book Flash #2, 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! 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 #2.

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


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Troop #3152 is Holding a Book Drive at Once Upon a Storybook, Sunday 12:30-5:30

Thank you Girl Scout Troop #3152 for teaming up with Ethan & Choco’s Book Club for your Bronze Award project!!  This awesome troop is holding a book drive to benefit ECBC at Once Upon a Storybook this Sunday from 12:30-5:30. A portion of every book sale between these hours will go to ECBC if you mention Troop 3152 at checkout. Please come by to support the troop’s efforts, ECBC, and our wonderful local bookstore!!

Please re-post and share!

 

Click here to view the troop’s ECBC BookFair Flyer.

Click here to view the troop’s You Tube video.


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Ethan’s March 2017 Title Talk (and February Thank-You’s)

Here’s Ethan’s March 2017 Title Talk (#3), the list of books he hopes will be donated to ECBC in the month of March! 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 purchased off the wish list will be sent directly to ECBC.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated books in the month of February! And thank you so much to Serge Melkizian (my great buddy Andrew’s uncle), the Sherrill Family’s Super Bowl guests, and HarperCollins Publishers for your super generous donations in the month of February!

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


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Please Donate a Book in Honor of World Read Aloud Day

img_1426Today is World Read Aloud Day (WRAD), which aims to bring global attention to the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories. I’m re-posting Ethan’s WRAD post from last year (click here to view), where he describes the importance of this day and reads aloud a favorite picture book. He also expresses his hope that on this day in 2017 (today!), all patients at CHOC Children’s are being read to. We’re not quite there yet, but we are getting closer to launching Phase 1 in the hospital, which is “Reading Aloud in Every Room”. Please consider donating a book from ECBC’s Amazon Wish List (click here) to help the kids at CHOC experience the joy and power of reading aloud!