The DeKalb Public Library will be hosting a square dance and pie baking contest at 6 p.m. Saturday.

The event will be held at Hopkins Park Shelter, 1403 Sycamore Road. During the event, participants have a chance to enter a pie baking contest. The deadline to sign up for the contest is today at 9 p.m. Entries can be submitted online via email to Edith Craig, DeKalb Public Library community relations manager, or by signing up at the DeKalb Public Library, 309 Oak St.

Craig said no experience is needed to participate in the square dancing and there will be plenty to do for everyone.

“We will have a caller who officiates the square dancing, and beginners are welcome,” Craig said. “There will be pies, refreshments and big read books being handed out. There will be plenty to do between eating and dancing.”

The event is being held as a wrap up of the Big Read events that the library has been hosting. The Big Read is a federal grant that the library won from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The DeKalb Public Library is one of only four libraries in the nation that has won the grant six years in a row.

Theresa Winterbauer, DeKalb Public Library’s youth department manager, said the library takes pride in winning the grant and the benefits that comes with it.

“We are very proud to have received it for six years in a row,” Winterbauer said. “This means we are able to provide a book for the entire community and hold these events to make the book come alive for them, as well.”

The federal grant is used to order between 6,000 and 10,000 books to be distributed to the community. One book is chosen every year from the NEA’s book list and is focused on through a series of events in October. This year, the book that was chosen is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Some of the events included in the Big Read series included a fence painting picnic and game day, a Twain impersonator, a Native American story teller, and many book discussions about Twain.

Reference librarian Sally DeFauw said the Big Read has something to contribute to people of all ages.

“My favorite part about the Big Read is that we have such a variety of activities that can include everyone in it,” DeFauw said.