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


Leave a comment

Largest Outpatient Delivery Day To Date!

Today was our monthly re-stocking day at CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and at the Oncology Clinic. Usually our bins have scattered books remaining, but today every bin from both libraries was completely empty — so we donated a total of 515 new books for infant through teenage/young adult aged patients. One of the oncology nurses mentioned that patients are now arriving for their chemo infusion or their oncology visit eager to choose a book, and almost all kids are choosing a book over a toy. As stated in our mission, ECBC strives “to make access to books and reading a core part of the care that kids receive in the hospital” — it’s so exciting that books have become a regular and expected part of patients’ outpatient oncology experience!

Today, May 24, is also the 5 year anniversary of the launching of our inpatient program at CHOC, which includes bedside reading in patient rooms by our education/literacy expert volunteers as well as our mobile gifting book cart program. Currently, our bedside reading and mobile books cart programs run on the 5th floor, which is oncology, neurology, and multi-speciality — so many of the hospital’s sickest kids with the longest stays. With sustained and improved funding we hope to someday be able to expand this program to bring high-quality literature and reading experiences to all inpatient floors!

PLEASE help us sustain and grow our programs by joining us at BOOK IT, our annual charity walk/run in Irvine, CA! You can sign up to walk or run (as well as donate) by clicking HERE! And, please share our BOOK IT registration site with your own family and friends — https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023!


Leave a comment

Thank you Foothill High School

THANK YOU Foothill High School families for donating books to Ethan & Choco’s Book Club last month. There is always such an abundance of information and philanthropic opportunities coming from our kids’ schools, and we so appreciate your taking the time to support ECBC’s programs at CHOC. A huge shout out to FHS’ Ethan & Choco’s Club for hosting such a successful book drive! You collected 100 new books –approximately $1000 worth — a record for a high school book drive for ECBC! Your posters, social media marketing, on-site and online options for book donations, and your homemade brownie incentive all paid off!

If teens are interested in starting an Ethan & Choco Club at their own high school, refer to/print flyer below or email ali@ECbookclub.com.


Leave a comment

Thank You Brookhaven Elementary!

THANK YOU Brookhaven Elementary School for hosting a book drive for ECBC at your book fair last week, and for the 134 new books that were donated by your families! And a HUGE thank you to Jennifer Wolsky Garnant for organizing the book drive and to Will for counting the books and ensuring they are all bookplated! We are so grateful for your support; all of these books will be going to CHOC oncology patients next week!


Leave a comment

BOOK IT, ECBC’s Annual Charity Run, Is Back!

We’re excited to announce that BOOK IT is finally back as an in-person charity walk/run, after a 4 year hiatus!  Currently, ECBC is giving away 500+ new books monthly to patients atCHOC Children’s Hospital (largely to oncology warriors and other kids battling life-altering illness), and our volunteers are reading aloud at patients’ bedside. Please join us in Irvine on the morning of Sept 4, and help us to sustain our book and reading programs at CHOC! You can register quickly by clicking the graphic below, and enter BOOKIT2023_earlyreg20 for an early registration discount of 20% per registrant.  Also please consider creating a walking/running team and recruit others to join your team (works great for friends/family, sports teams, corporate team…any group!). 

Click above to access registration site.

We also are looking for sponsors at most levels including Title Sponsor. To learn more about sponsorship opportunities, click on the “become a sponsor” tab on the BOOK IT registration site, or email ali@ECbookclub for more information.

This year’s BOOK IT will feature:

  • 1K Fun Run and 5K Walk/Run
  • Race warm-up led by PaKua Master David Clawson and CHOC mascot CHOCO
  • T-shirt, medal, and electronic timing results
  • Book character costume contest with prizes
  • On-site booksellers + book drive, with raffle for donating a book
  • Other literary-themed activities

Thank you for helping ECBC to help Orange County’s hospitalized kids thrive with books and reading. We hope to see you on September 4 at the start line!   

Please share this post, or the link to the BOOK IT registration site (https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2023) if you can!


Leave a comment

Book Bag Delivery Day at CHOC Children’s Hospital

This morning we re-stocked the hospital’s inventory of ECBC’s Read Think Thrive Bags, which are book bags that are given to every toddler, child, and teen/young adult who is diagnosed with cancer at CHOC. These bags are stocked with ten new book books curated by the age and gender of the recipient, as well as art and literary crafting supplies, a letter and “Thrive Challenge” from Ethan, and other literacy support items (bookmark, reading light, Parent Pamphlet for supporting literacy through treatment). Valued at $150 a bag, sustaining this program is a mighty task for ECBC, especially given the current cancer diagnosis rate of 10-15 new cases per month. We so appreciate our donors who have allowed us provide these bags to help oncology warriors to thrive through treatment with easy access to high-quality books!


Leave a comment

Outpatient re-stocking day!

Today was outpatient book delivery day for the month of March! Patients went through more books this past month than ever in the past, and we restocked 450 books for patients of all ages. Many kids and families are now looking forward to their visits because they know they will get to pick out a new high-quality book from a fantastic and varied collection. Books motivating kids to look forward to their oncology and chemo infusion visits—I’d call that success for ECBC for sure!

To help ECBC re-stock for next month’s delivery, CLICK HERE to purchase a book from our Amazon wish list. Or, CLICK HERE to make a monetary donation.


Leave a comment

THANK YOU Hicks Canyon!

THANK YOU Hicks Canyon Elementary School for hosting a spring book drive and collecting 77 new books for ECBC — all of which will be going directly to CHOC this Friday as part of our monthly outpatient library re-stocking day. We are so grateful that you chose to support ECBC at BOTH your school book fairs this year, and we are super excited about your commitment to partner with us in the future. And a big thank you to Tina Jussal for your ongoing leadership in putting together book drives for us. We are giving away a significant number of books (~500+ per month), so we depend on schools like Hicks to keep on going. Thank you!


Leave a comment

Another Mega Bag Packaging Day in the Books

This weekend, volunteers gathered to assemble 112 Read Think Thrive bags, ECBC’s books bags that are delivered to every patient at CHOC Children’s Hospital in the days or weeks following a new cancer diagnosis. Each zippered canvas bag contains ten new, highly-quality books that are curated by the age and gender of the recipient, a generous stash of art supplies and literary crafting materials (e.g., blank books, blank comic books, blank bookmarks), a “Read Think Thrive Challenge” from Ethan to do a creative response to one of the books in the bag, a handwritten postcard and literary response from a non-cancer “Thrive Buddy” to motivate a creative thinking response to a book, and various other items such as a reading light, bookmark, and our collectible Book Bands. Since we have twelve different age X gender categories of Read Think Thrive Bags with their own age X gender appropriate supplies, assembling 112 bags is quite an undertaking, organizationally and financially! THANK YOU to all the volunteers who came out to help put these together, and a HUGE thank you to Anne Case and Susie Alexander for all your work to pull this day off! And finally, thank you to Eric Tweedt for your ongoing generosity in letting ECBC use your warehouse space for this project (and storing a ton of our books)! We can’t wait to get these book bags into the hands of kids at CHOC and to hopefully inspire regular reading of great literature as part of their battles against cancer.


Leave a comment

Outpatient Book Delivery Day at CHOC

Today we re-stocked our outpatient libraries at CHOC Children’s Hospital with 250 new books. This allows all patients visiting CHOC’s Outpatient Infusion Center (OPI) and the Oncology Clinic to select a new, age-appropriate book when they visit for a chemo infusion or physician appointment. We deliver 200-500 books each month to our outpatient libraries so we are grateful to our donors who help us to make this possible. To donate a book from our amazon wish list, CLICK HERE. All books will be sent directly to ECBC and bookplated with donor name.


Leave a comment

Thank you FHS ECBC Club!

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, and along with our usual bedside reading and book give-aways, this week we delivered Valentine cards made by local high school students that shared “love of reading” messages with CHOC patients. THANK YOU to Foothill High School ECBC club for making these beautiful cards at your last club meeting — the patients loved getting personalized cards written by high schoolers!