In celebration of Arts Day in California, Daves Avenue is having Authors' Day. Two Bay Area authors, Bob Barner and Shirley Climo, will come to the school to talk about their profession and sign books for the children.

This will be the second time Daves Avenue has held Authors' Day. The first celebration was more than 10 years ago, which has provided ample time for faculty to become eager about hosting the event again.

"We are all really excited," says Principal Susan von Felten. "It has been awhile since our last Authors' Day. I think it really strengthens the community and enriches the kids lives."

Kindergarten through fifth-grade students are participating in the event and have all been preparing for weeks.

Each classroom has read and discussed books by the authors, and children are making paper quilts in honor of the day and the authors as part of a special project headed up by school librarian Florence Adamson. For the project, each student designs one square of paper for the quilt in response to the book he or she has read. All of the pieces made by a class level are collected and put together to resemble a sewn quilt.

"The idea for the quilts was from when we did the project 10 years ago," says Mary Buxton, a volunteer who has spent the last year working with Adamson and a small team to reintroduce Authors' Day. "It was a nice way to keep the workload light on the teachers while making it meaningful for the kids."

The quilts are just being finished, and, once complete, they will hang in the library to commemorate the day.

Classes have also been working together to come up with questions for the authors. "I think this will be very exciting," Buxton says. "It's a great thing to have the authors come here so the kids can cultivate questions and work as a group."

The authors will give three separate presentations for each class level. Climo will be speaking with kindergarten students as well as first- and second-graders. Barney will work with the third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students.

Both Barner and Climo write and illustrate their books, which target a wide range of ages and reading levels.

Barner will be using several of his books, all of them non-fiction, for the event, including Stars!Stars!Stars! and Dinosaur Bones. He has been a children's author since 1976 and has been traveling to give presentations for adults and children for nearly the same amount of time.

"I really enjoy going into the schools," Barner says. "I like talking to the kids and teachers. I was shy about it in the beginning, but now I'm sort of a ham about it."

Instead of merely reading to the students, Barner prefers to sing and draw. For example, he sketches big outlines of bones while performing the "Dem Bones" song to accompany his similarly titled book.

"I am looking forward to the event," he says. "I am very exited that they invited me."

Climo is a return guest, having presented at the Authors' Day 10 years ago. Like Barner, Climo also prefers performance to reading. "I think you lose something with no eye contact," she says. "They can read themselves, so it's better to tell them stories."

She has been writing for 25 years and giving presentations at schools for nearly 15. "I love to go into the schools," Climo says, "because you can get in touch with what the kids are reading and what they want to be reading."

Although she writes for all age levels, Climo particularly enjoys grades three through five. "I am terribly pleased to work with those ages. You can really get into the story and their writing," she says. "Sometimes it is hard for them to get ideas at that age, so I like to allow them to be creative by telling them that it is all right to change things - whether bigger, smaller, funnier or sadder."

Climo will be presenting several of her books, including The Egyptian Cinderella, A Treasury of Mermaids and her most recent collection of stories, A Cobweb Christmas.

In addition to the delight of having special guests come to campus for the students, the school is equally happy about and intent on spreading the message of Arts Day, which aims to "promote local artists and the value of the arts, culture and creativity in the state."

"We do this to celebrate the combination of art and literature," von Felten says. "Some of these kids may not be inclined to read, but maybe when they see how much the authors love what they do, they can appreciate that and have a different perspective the next time they pick up a book."