ARLINGTON – The Arlington Masons, Arlington Library and Friends of the Library will announce the lucky boy and girl who will each receive a bike for participating in the annual Bikes for Books Challenge.

The Bikes for Books party will be at 2 p.m. June 2 at the library, 135 N. Washington Ave. The winners have the choice of a bike or Kindle HD8, and a door prize drawing for a second Kindle will be part of the festivities.

The Arlington Masonic Lodge hosted an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner recently to raise money for the bikes, said Kent Brown, publicity chairman. The group served more than 50 dinners, gave away a table of raffle items and raised about $600.

“This will easily allow us to purchase a half-dozen more bikes, and helmets for next time, and continue to plan for adding Kindle-type prizes for kids to earn,” Brown said.

To participate, children in grades K-5 picked up a challenge bookmark and had to read five books to be entered into the drawing. The more books read, the better the chances of leaving the library on two wheels. Deadline to turn in completed bookmarks is May 25.

The Masons earlier this year gave away bikes to participants at the Darrington Library. They have reached out to the new Smokey Point-Lakewood Library branch that opened in January, and would like to bring the bikes program there, too, Brown said.

“We want to see kids establish a love for reading early in life, and increase the enthusiasm among young readers,” Brown said.