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

Tag Archives: thriveagainstcancer Childhoodcancerawarenessmonth


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The Beginning of Holiday Book Gifting!

With the start of December, ECBC began our holiday-themed book gifting to kids who are on the inpatient side of the hospital at CHOC. ECBC volunteers are wheeling around our gifting library cart (see below) to offer patients age-appropriate Christmas and other December holiday themed books — from Christmas-themed board books, picture books, joke books and graphic novels to contemporary holiday-themed fiction for teens and young adults. Since our volunteers were not allowed in the hospital last year due to COVID restrictions, we weren’t able to personally deliver any books to kids on the inpatient side. It’s so wonderful to be back to offering the kids choice and variety, which let’s them select based on their needs and interests!

We have enough holiday books to get us through this week, but we still need many more (for all book types and ages) to get us through the month and to also to give to kids who visit Outpatient Oncology, the Outpatient Infusion Center, and kids living at Miracle Manor (Miracles for Kids’ subsidized housing for CHOC families). To donate, please visit our December holiday wish list on Amazon by CLICKING HERE. You can also donate a new holiday book by visiting Arvida Book Co in Tustin and buying a book to put in their donation box.

THANK YOU for helping ECBC to help hospitalized kids thrive through the holidays with books and reading!


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CHOC Holiday Book Deliveries

We just completed the last of our holiday book donations with these deliveries to CHOC inpatient oncology and neurology kids on the 5th floor as well as for CHOC’s outpatient oncology kiddos visiting the infusion center and the clinic. Three hundred wonderful holiday-themed books that will hopefully result in lots of reading and reading aloud! A huge thank you to all our amazing donors!


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30 Ways ECBC Helps Cancer Warriors Thrive Through Treatment: Day #6 of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Sept 6: The 6th way that bedside readers help hospitalized kids thrive through treatment, in addition to providing quality social interactions (see Sept 1 post), is by boosting children’s thinking and literacy skills. Reading is fundamental to cognitive health and thrivership for all kids, yet it is especially important for cancer warriors who are often missing significant school and literature-based instruction, have a type of cancer that directly impairs cognition, and/or are receiving types of treatment that have long-term cognitive impacts. ECBC’s expert bedside readers know how to model and scaffold good thinking while reading aloud, so that the reading session is not just a one-way interaction but a two-way dialogue with reader and listener together predicting, making text-based connections, and thinking deeply about the text.

To support ECBC’s bedside reading program, go to www.runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020 — donate $20 for one bedside reading book, or donate $600 for a full wagon of bedside reading books which are rotated monthly (30 books).


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30 Ways ECBC Helps Cancer Warriors Thrive Through Treatment: Day #3 of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

September 3: One way ECBC helps hospitalized kids thrive through treatment by…Providing Spanish-language books to patients as requested or needed — both through bedside reading as well as via the mobile gifting library cart. CHOC has a significant Spanish-speaking patient population, and ECBC is finding a demand for Spanish language books that is significantly greater than the collection of books we have. Please help us fill this gap!

To support ECBC’s supply of Spanish-language books for CHOC patients, go to https://runsignup.com/BOOKIT2020 — $20 provides a new hardcover Spanish-language book for bedside reading, and $50 provides five Spanish-language books for the mobile book cart! THANK YOU for supporting BOOK IT and helping to honor cancer warriors during this month!