By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Kids at Creek View Elementary School got a firsthand lesson on the importance of writing and using their imaginations during the school’s Awesome Authors Day on May 3.

The day featured visits from a pair of well-known authors – Mike Artell and Rick Shelton – and singer singer-songwriter Roger Day.

“This is one of my favorite days of the year. Awesome Authors Day is all about how people solve problems using their imagination,” Day told a group of hundreds of first-graders gathered in the school’s cafeteria.

The students gathered in the cafeteria were quick to start singing along, clapping and dancing to Day’s performance, which included songs such as “We Will Build a Better World” and “Sarah Bellum, the Unbelievably Cerebral Girl.”

“When she came up on a problem and she got it wrong, she didn’t give up,” Day said while singing “Sarah Bellum.” “She tried and tried and tried,”

“So what will you do next time you come up on a hard problem on your math test?” Day asked the kids, eliciting a loud “Try” from the kids.

The school holds the day each year to teach kids the “value that writing can have on their lives,” according to a school press release.

In addition to Day, the kids also visited with Artell, an award-winning author, illustrator, TV cartoonist, speaker, musician, storyteller and humorist, and Shelton, a writing consultant and author who spends a third of the year visiting classrooms to work with students and their teachers.

Shelton shared his book “Write Where You Are: Strategies for Teaching Four Modes of Writing,” which teaches kids how to improve their writing.

Artell shared science facts from his books about weather, space, bugs and smells.