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: ReadAloudEveryDay


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‘Tis the Season of Holiday Books at CHOC

ECBC had a fun and productive day on Thursday, getting books and reading to CHOC patients in a variety of ways. We teamed up with MaxLove Project for a holiday-themed BeSuper Party in the hospital lobby, where we gave away December holiday-themed books to patients and siblings of all ages. We also delivered books to the Outpatient Infusion Center, re-stocking their shelves with approximately 150 new holiday books. And, per our ongoing bi-weekly inpatient program, ECBC’s expert Bedside Readers read aloud to the Oncology and Neurology patients on the 5th floor while also giving away books to patients in isolation using our mobile book cart. To top it off, we delivered a Read+Think+Thrive Bag to a 17-year old cancer patient. It was so fun to reach so many patients at CHOC, especially with terrific high-quality, holiday-themed literature! This is the first year we’ve been able to provide CHOC kids with holiday books and they have been THRILLED — THANK YOU TO everyone who has been dropping off and sending books to us — — we’ve been overwhelmed by the donations, which are making this season at the hospital that much more

special! #HospitalizedKidsNeedBooksToo #ReadAloudEveryDay #ReadThinkThrive #ThriveAgainstCancer #BedsideReading #BeSuper #ECBC #ReadThruTheHolidays


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Thank You BOOK IT! 2019 Book Drive Donors!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who brought, purchased, and donated books at our onsite book drive at ECBC’s BOOK IT! charity run! At one to 20 books a person, every book makes a difference! A special thank you to SCHOLASTIC for your super generous donation of a fantastic collection of books. Coupled with our online book drive, the book drive part of our fundraiser provides us with several months worth of books for our events and programs.

We are currently giving away approximately 400 new books per month to patients at CHOC between our various commitments, with the demand increasing as we continue to expand our programs. One of our next goals is to get to floors other than Oncology and Neurology! Our online BOOK IT fundraising/bookraising campaign will be running for another few weeks (until October 8th). If you haven’t yet had a chance to contribute, please consider clicking HERE to donate fund a new hardcover book ($20) or a book box for kids diagnosed with cancer ($100).

THANK YOU for helping ECBC help Orange County’s hospitalized kids thrive through treatment with high-quality books and read-alouds!


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Bedside Reading is Officially 2x/Week at CHOC!

Too bad we can’t show faces b/c boy was this teen’s expression priceless — pure joy!

We are so excited that ECBC is now offering bedside reading by our awesome expert readers (mostly current and retired teachers and librarians) two times per week at CHOC Children’s Hospital! We are taking baby steps for sure towards our goal of being able to provide the opportunity for a read aloud to every patient every day — but our slow yet steady progress towards this goal means we are expanding our program thoughtfully, without compromising the quality of the reader or the read-aloud experience. Not all read-alouds are equal; there actually is an art to it!! And we’re proud to be providing quality read-aloud interactions with the best literature and good dialoguing. Which is so powerful especially for the many patients we read to who are not in school, receiving few if any other literature-based experiences, often spend substantial time on screens, may have a condition or be receiving treatment that affects cognition, need to escape the hospital walls, and/or just need to connect with another human being! Thank you to ECBC’s amazing (and growing) bedside reading team!!

If you didn’t make it to BOOK IT! last week (our annual charity run) and would like to support ECBC’s growing programs such as this one, the BOOK IT! online fundraising campaign will be running for another few weeks. Please CLICK HERE to donate!

If you missed the charity run and would like to hear Ethan’s brief welcome/update, please CLICK HERE or image above to view.


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A Productive Day at CHOC

Today ECBC trained a terrific new bedside reader volunteer (Karen Malone Ottoson — so happy to have you on board!); gave away a bunch of new books to toddlers through teens at our Super Book Give-Away alongside MaxLove’s Be Super Party in the CHOC lobby; delivered 125 new books to the Outpatient Infusion Center; conducted bedside reading in oncology and neurology patients’ rooms; and offered patients in isolation books to keep from our mobile Gifting Library Cart. A busy, great day at CHOC for ECBC!

PLEASE help ECBC keep this all this going for Orange County’s hospitalized kids and join us at our 2nd annual charity run — BOOK IT! Racing for Reading for Hospitalized Kids! Race is in 23 days — sign up now!!!

Click HERE to register, donate, and more!


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Ethan’s June Most Wanted Books Video

Here is Ethan’s MOST WANTED BOOKS video for the month of June — which is a plea for book donations in an area of great need for ECBC. In this video, Ethan asks for three areas of books that he has already asked for earlier this year — graphic novels, board books, and Spanish language books — because our supply of all three of these is always so low. Please check out his video and consider donating. Books can be purchased and sent directly to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club by clicking on these links to the wish lists on Amazon:

Click on image to view Ethan’s June Most Wanted Books Video

Thank you so much for supporting ECBC’s book and reading programs for hospitalized kids!


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ECBC Helps Celebrate Cancer Survivorship Day at CHOC

ECBC had a great time yesterday at CHOC’s Celebration of Life celebrating cancer survivorship on the oncology floor! ECBC featured the terrific picture book —After the Fall ( by Dan Santat), which tells the story of Humpty Dumpty AFTER his great fall—how he had to face his fear of heights and get back up again. Which pediatric cancer kiddos must do as well—get back up again and again while and after battling for their life. ECBC gave away copies of this book to kids of all ages (as well as other books from our gifting book cart), and kids painted their own Humpty Dumpty egg characters. Celebrating life and thrivership, and the power of books. 


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It has been a Full Year of Bedside Reading at CHOC Children’s!

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of ECBC”s bedside reading and mobile book cart program at CHOC Children’s Hospital! Before we launched our inpatient program on May 24, 2018, it was rare to see a book or reading happening on a patient floor. Now, patients are regularly being read high-quality literature, and patients in isolation, who are not able to access available books in the hospital lobby, are able to choose books to keep from our mobile book cart. While the year 1 data have not yet been analyzed, our bedside reader volunteers report that, generally speaking, the patients are giving more “yes”s to reading than “no'”s, they are engaged during read-alouds, and they are asking volunteers to stay longer and read more. Which is so much better than we expected when we launched this program (especially knowing that reading can be a hard sell against technology). We can’t wait to formally analyze data from our first year and share the results!

A huge thank you to the most awesome bedside reading team I can imagine. We have an awesome group of current and former educators, librarians, school psychologists, and reading specialists — and they are a large reason why we are getting such a terrific response from the children! I’m so grateful for this team!

As we head into year 2, we will be working on growing this program so that we can offer reading aloud to patients on more hospital floors and more days of the week, with the ultimate goal to be able to offer every available patient a read aloud every day of the week (which is consistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation of at least 15 minutes a day of reading). We will be looking to recruit new volunteers, particularly those with prior experience in education/literacy — please email at Ali@ECbookclub.com if you are interested in learning more about becoming a bedside reader.

  • OPI shelves after today’s delivery of 120 books!


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An Awesome Girl Scout Silver Award Project…and Successful Mini Book Box Packaging Day!

A HUGE thank you to 7th graders Morgan, Sam, and Delaney for choosing to support ECBC’s Read+Think+Thrive (RTT) Box program for their Girl Scout Silver Award project!

Theses three girls, who are part of Girl Scout Troop #2908, fundraised, book-raised, and contributed many hours to be able to fund and assemble fifteen RTT Boxes for middle school-aged kids at CHOC Children’s Hospital who are diagnosed with cancer (10 girl boxes, 5 boy boxes). 

In the months leading up to their packaging day, the girls worked super hard. They set up their own online book drive to collect needed titles for middle school boxes. They made a promotional video, shared it on social media, linked it to their own Amazon wish list of books, and collected and kept track of book titles that were sent to them. They also fundraised and raised $900 to go towards purchasing books as well as the art supplies that go in each box. In addition, they (1)  beautifully decorated eight sides and flaps of each of 15 boxes with ECBC-themed quotes and artwork; (2) completed Thrive Buddy responses by creatively responding to a book in each box to help motivate box recipients to participate in Ethan’s Read+Think+Thrive Challenge; and (3) designed and made their own reading-themed laminated bookmarks to add in each box as gifts specifically from them. 

This week, after months of hard work (and surpassing the Mini Box Packaging Day requirement of providing funds/materials for at least 10 boxes), the girls gathered to pack the15 boxes they funded. In two hours, they assembled and taped the boxes; added bookplates to books with donor names; wrote personalized “Care Cards” with notes to recipients and packaged the cards in baggies with two ECBC Book Bands; assembled packets of ECBC promotional materials; and packed all 15 boxes with the variety of items they collected and created. Reading lights were added as well — Thanks to Max Stahl for funding these as part of his 8th grade community service project! After the two hours were done, 15 beautifully decorated boxes filled with high-quality books and a variety of other reading-related treats were ready to go! THANK YOU Morgan, Sam, and Delaney for your initiative, creativity, hard work, and commitment to this project —- we appreciate your support so much!

Click HERE to check out Ethan’s 20 second time-lapse video of 2/3 of the 2 hour box packaging session!

Time-lapse video of some the girls’ packaging sessions!

We’re excited to now have a great supply of middle school boxes ready to go! We need an equal number of boxes for all other age groups (infant/toddler, preschool, early elementary, upper elementary, high school). If there’s a youth or philanthropic group out there who’s interested in working on a mini-packaging day for your group (minimum requirement is to fundraise and/or book-raise to cover 10 boxes — about $1000), please get in touch by emailing Ali@ECbookclub.com! 


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Girl Scout Troop #3115 Engages in Some Fantastic Awareness Raising for ECBC!

Last Sunday, Girl Scout Troop #3115 participated in the 2019 Girl Scout Day of Service at Foothill High School. With more than 600 Girl Scouts and 200 adults in attendance, the girls spent the afternoon sharing with others ECBC’s cause and ways they can help support. They focused on our book box program (“Read+Think+Thrive Boxes) for kids newly diagnosed with cancer, as they have been focused on helping ECBC build this specific program for over three years. Using terrific visuals that they made, the girls shared information about what a book box is; how other youth can become a “Thrive Buddy” by responding to a creative reading prompt that gets included in a box, and how ECBC’s “Book Band” reading incentive program works at the hospital. They also came up with the idea to package ECBC’s Book Bands for the book boxes into baggies with personalized “Care Cards” — and they made this an activity for other scouts to participate in while visiting their booth. Finally, they distributed flyers about two upcoming events — our second annual BOOK IT! on September 8th (click here to register) and Girl Scout Troop #3244’s Book Drive and Thrive Party on June 8th (click here to learn more and register).

We are so grateful to Troop #3115’s longstanding commitment to ECBC — these girls (and their troop leaders) have been truly awesome partners!


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Ethan’s April Most Wanted Books Video

Here is Ethan’s MOST WANTED BOOKS video for the month of April — which is a plea for book donations in an area of great need for ECBC. In this video, Ethan’s asks for wordless picture books. Please check out his video and consider donating. Books can be purchased and sent directly to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club by clicking HERE to access the wish list on Amazon.

We also still REALLY NEED books for teens and young adults (March’s Most Wanted book type), board books (February’s Most Wanted book type), and Spanish language books (January’s Most Wanted book type). You can access these wish list by clicking on these links:
– ECBC Special Need Wish List: Spanish Books
– ECBC Special Need Wish List: Board Books
— ECBC Special Need Wish List: Teen/Young Adult Books

*Please keep in mind that we will ALWAYS need hardcover and paperback books for our permanent Lending Library and our special situations (including patients in isolation) Gifting Libraries at CHOC. The link to our General Wish List for our hospital libraries is ECBC’s General Wish List.

Thank you for supporting ECBC’s book and reading programs for hospitalized kids!


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Thank you Anna!

A HUGE thank you to Anna Joelson for collecting all these amazing books as part of your 7th birthday celebration! So many great titles — from board books and beginning readers to picture books and chapter books — that will contribute to both our Gifting and Lending Libraries! Thank you for sharing some of your birthday love with ECBC. We appreciate your support so very much!


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Thank You to Two Tustin Elementary Schools

  • Loma Vista’s books!
  • Thank you Jayden!
  • Myford’s books!

A huge thank you to Loma Vista Elementary School and Myford Elementary School for the your awesome book donations last week. Both schools conducted school-wide book drives alongside existing book purchasing programs. Organized by Loma Vista parent Beth Feher, Loma Vista conducted a book drive at their school’s Scholastic Book Fair and as part of their Read Across America celebrations. With the amazing help of first grader Jayden Salazar, Loma Vista collected and donated 260 new books to ECBC — returning our book donation box completely full! (not a small accomplishment –the box is huge!).

And, spearheaded by kindergarten teacher Danielle Clawson, Myford collected book donations via students’ Scholastic Book Club orders, where parents were given the opportunity to purchase additional books to donate to ECBC as part of their child’s book order. Thank you Danielle and Myford for the 80 books that you donated as a result of this book drive, and also for your ongoing support of ECBC through Scholastic Book Club orders.

School book drives are the largest source of ECBC’s gifting library. Since 100% of our gifting library books are given away (to kids in isolation at CHOC, at hospital book-give away events, in book boxes for new cancer diagnoses), ECBC depends on the support of local schools to sustain our gifting book programs. If your school is interested in collecting new books for ECBC, please contact us at ali@ECbookclub.com

THANK YOU LOMA VISTA ELEMENTARY AND MYFORD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!


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Triple Play Thursday!

ECBC had a fun and productive Thursday this week, getting books and reading to three different areas of CHOC! ECBC teamed up with MaxLove Project’s BeSuper Party for our monthly Super Book Give-Away in the hospital lobby, where we gave away books to patients and siblings of all ages. Next, we delivered books to the Outpatient Infusion Center, re-stocking their shelves with 150 new books. Finally, ECBC’s expert Bedside Readers read aloud to the Oncology and Neurology and patients on the 5th floor while also giving away books to patients in isolation using our mobile book cart. So fun to reach so many patients at CHOC today!


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BRBR! Bedside Reading Brief Report

Two of ECBC’s expert bedside readers with the Read Aloud Wagons

We had such a fantastic afternoon at CHOC yesterday, bringing books and reading to patients in all sorts of ways! Our bedside reading team spent the afternoon on the 5th floor (oncology, neurology) — getting almost  100% “yes”s to their offers of a read aloud from our Read-Aloud Wagon. It was super fun to see one patient receive her fourth Book Band (there are 10 ECBC Book Bands that patients can receive and collect for each time they accept a book or a read aloud), and especially to be very proud to be wearing them all. Our bedside readers also gave away a bunch of books to infant through teenage patients in isolation. In addition, we did our monthly book delivery to the Outpatient Infusion Center (“OPI”), where Ethan received all of his outpatient chemo — re-stocking their shelves with approximately 80 books for patients and siblings to read and take home.

Finally, as of yesterday, we explicitly communicated with CHOC that we are now ready to systematically provide a Read+Think+Thrive Box for every new cancer diagnosis at CHOC. Prior to this, we have been providing our book boxes informally and sporadically as we hear about them through MaxLove Project and word of mouth. From here on forward, CHOC will reach out to ECBC as kids are diagnosed so that we can provide a book box that is curated by age and gender of the patient right after diagnosis — which, as we know personally, is a time when books and reading are not on the forefront of caregivers’ minds but if put right in front of them perhaps will be embraced and provide comfort. A few hours after committing to providing the boxes systemically, we received an email from Child life about a newly diagnosed kid — so we promptly got a box together for a 7-year-old girl and delivered it.

Ethan and I are super excited about the Read+Think+Thrive Box program, and we’re eager to work on ramping it up so that we can more seamlessly assemble and deliver boxes to kids at CHOC. That being said, we need ongoing funding to be able to continue to provide boxes as kids are diagnosed. If you would like to support, click here to learn more about our Read+Think+Thrive Boxes, click on any of the links on that page to donate a book from one of our RTT box wish lists. or click here to fund a single RTT Box or an RTT Box monthly at $100/month (which would cover one new diagnosis each month). 

What a successful Thursday at CHOC!!

the RTT Box that yesterday went to a 7 year old just diagnosed with cancer.

 

 


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Ethan’s Ten Thrive Titles for July and August (& June/July Thank Yous)

In this video, Ethan thanks book donors in the months of June and July for their generous book donations. A huge thank you to Arroyo Elementary School 3rd graders, Mrs. Rojo’s 2nd grade class from St. Cecilia School, Girl Scout Troop #3980, Merrill Plozi, and Adriene Madden. As Ethan mentions in the video, book donations have slowed down lately, but we need donations now more than ever since we are giving away books regularly and frequently to patients in the hospital.

In part 2 of this video, Ethan shares his lists of Ten Thrive Titles (TTT) for July and August 2018 — which are his specially curated lists of books that are needed for his Read+Think+Thrive Boxes for kids diagnosed with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. The lists shared here are the books needed for book boxes for middle school boys and for middle school girls. Books can be purchased and sent directly to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club by clicking on the links to our wish lists on Amazon. Please click here for the list for middle school boys and click here for the list for middle school girls). 

Thank you for helping ECBC reach our goal of providing a book box to every new cancer diagnosis at CHOC Children’s Hospital!

To learn more about ECBC’s Read+Think+Thrive Boxes, click here!

*Please keep in mind that we will ALWAYS need hardcover and paperback books for our permanent Lending Library and our special situations (including patients in isolation) Gifting Libraries at CHOC. The link to our General Wish List for our hospital libraries is ECBC’s General Wish List

 

 


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A SUPER Afternoon at CHOC!

ECBC had a great day today at CHOC! On the second floor lobby, we gave away about 70 books at our monthly Super Book Give-Away as part of MaxLove Project’s BeSuper Party and alongside Donovan’s Smile. On the Oncology/Neurology floor our expert Bedside Readers read aloud some great books in patient rooms ranging in age from infant through age 12. And we filled the Outpatient Infusion Center’s shelves with 75 new board books, beginning readers, picture books, and chapter books. So many books into patients’ hands today!! We’re giving away many books regularly and really need book donations!! Click here for the link to our wishlist on amazon, which allows donors to purchase books that will be sent directly to ECBC. 


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Ethan’s Ten Thrive Titles for June 2018

Here’s Ethan’s June book request video, which includes his May thank you’s and his list of Ten Thrive Titles (TTT) for June 2018 — which is his specially curated list of books that are needed for his Read+Think+Thrive Boxes for kids diagnosed with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. In this video, Ethan shares the list of books needed for book boxes for upper elementary-aged girls. Books can be purchased and sent directly to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club by clicking on this link. Each book box also comes with art and writing supplies so that kids can respond creatively to the books — these art supplies can be donated as well by clicking here.

To learn more about ECBC’s Read+Think+Thrive Boxes, click here!

Thank you for helping ECBC get our book boxes to more SuperKids in 2018!!

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Here are links to other books needed, in addition to the ten thrive titles for upper elementary-aged girls’ Read+Think+Thrive Boxes:

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Another successful afternoon at CHOC!

ECBC had a terrific afternoon yesterday at CHOC, with two of our programs going on at the same time and with such a good response. On the 5th floor (oncology/neurology), our bedside readers visited patient rooms with the Read-Aloud Wagon and read aloud with almost every available patient on the floor. We received so many more “YES”s to reading than we anticipated! And on the hospital lobby, ECBC gave away many books off our Gifting Library Cart to patients and siblings who came down for MaxLove’s Be Super Party (see photo — unfortunately we can’t share pics of patients). It has been a wonderful first four weeks since launching our program — so rewarding to see plans in action, to see books becoming part of patients hospital experience!


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Quick Report: Week 2 of Our New Inpatient Program

Just a quick update on week two of ECBC’s new inpatient bedside reading and mobile book cart program: Last week, we had a launching party in the playroom, where ECBC volunteers read aloud an interactive book about color mixing and guided patients to do some of their own color mixing in blank books and on blank puzzles. This week, we started our visits to patient rooms — where we asked patients if they were up for a read-aloud and possibly a related craft. Patients get visited by so many different people during the day, so often it can be difficult for an unknown volunteer to get a “yes” when asking to enter a patient’s room. We were SO thrilled that all but one patient/families said YES to a read-aloud! We read aloud with patients between the ages of 2 and 9, and volunteers’ reading resulted in patients putting down their ipads, getting engaged in a good story, making predictions and personal connections, and wanting more on a different day! One father of an oncology patient even said as an ECBC volunteer left the room: “Thank you so much, that was just what the doctor prescribed today”… which is actually a goal of ours, that someday “reading aloud” will be included in doctor recommendations as part of helping patients thrive during their hospital stays. #ECBC#Bedside Reading #ReadAloudEveryDay#HospitalizedKidsNeedBooksToo #ReadThinkThrive


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And Our Inpatient Program has Finally Started!

As of yesterday, ECBC has officially started our inpatient bedside reading and mobile book cart program at CHOC Children’s Hospital! It has been a long road to get here, but we are THRILLED to be able to finally bring books and reading to patients ON THE FLOORS (ie Oncology floor), not just in the lobby — reading aloud, using high-quality literature and trained “expert” readers, giving away books to patients in isolation via our new Gifting Library Cart, engaging patients in book-inpsired crafting, and getting patients excited to take a break from screentime! THANK YOU to Susie Alexander and Sandy Tweedt for helping to make our launch event so successful; I’m SO grateful to have such AMAZING volunteers! 

Our inaugural charity run is just 3 days away — it’s not too late to sign up! As we start our new program at CHOC, we have many new and ongoing program expenses, so we can use all the support we can get! Please join us and help us bring books and reading, and eventually a lending library, to CHOC Children’s Hospital! Click HERE to register.