How do you interest a child in a centenarian’s birthday party? You can’t say that it has magic tricks. Or a video arcade. Or paintball.

But in this case, you can promise that it will offer the genius of Beverly Cleary.

“I doubt that there’s a children’s book author out there who hasn’t been influenced by her,” said Drew Richardson, producer of literary programs at Symphony Space.

Mrs. Cleary, who was named “a living legend” by the Library of Congress in 2000 and who will turn 100 on April 12, won’t attend the celebration Symphony Space is to hold on Sunday. But the hosts will highlight her books — more than 40, and all still in print — and give voice to three of her beloved creations: the spirited mischief maker Ramona Quimby, heroine of “Ramona the Pest” and other stories; Ralph S. Mouse, the scooting star of “The Mouse and the Motorcycle”; and Leigh Botts, a sixth grader struggling with his parents’ divorce in “Dear Mr. Henshaw.” That novel won the Newbery Medal, the highest honor in children’s literature, in 1984.