Sara Carbonero narrates McDonald's audio-books for kids – and branch staff learn sign language

WORLD Cup national team goalkeeper Iker Casillas' ex-wife is the voice behind McDonald's 'Happy Meal Readers' audio-book collection for children.

The global fast-food chain is seeking to encourage the very young to read, and to make books accessible for children who are fully or partially blind or deaf.

Sara Carbonero – who split from her famous footballer husband early this year – will be putting her voice to the words of 12 of the books in the Happy Meal Readers scheme.

These books are also available in sign-language format, for deaf children.

Sara, 37, a presenter on Radio Marca – the airwaves version of the sports newspaper of the same name – says becoming the voice of the children's book collection has been 'a very enriching experience'.

“For me, as a mother, sharing a great story together as a family is a unique moment that I love to indulge in with my children every night,” she enthuses.

“I'm so excited to think that, via these little tales, more children in Spain will be able to enjoy fun, relaxing moments with their families.

“Additionally, I believe it's really important to awaken interest in reading among children from a very early age, as doing so contributes to developing their creativity and other cognitive and social skills.”

McDonald's has teamed up with Storytel to make its audio-books available free of charge online and to offer three months' free access to the MyMcDonald's App and the company website.

To get to the content, children or their parents just need to scan the QR code that comes with each individual Happy Meal.

The stories in Spanish sign language have been interpreted by McDonald's employees, who have taken part in a course on signing, run by the Madrid Deaf Persons' Association.

Over 300 McDonald's staff members have been taught sign language, so that they can communicate easily with deaf customers at branches in Spain, explains the national institutional relations manager for the chain, Paloma Cabral.

Sara Carbonero's name was, in the past, mainly known outside of her home country purely through that of her husband, who was national team captain during the 2010 World Cup and the 2008 and 2012 Euros, all of which Spain won, as well as being goalkeeper for Real Madrid for many years.

Disagreements with the chairman led to Iker, now 40, opting to take up a transfer to FC Oporto, and he and Sara moved to the Portuguese coastal city, where they ended up living for five years.

Fans of the pair will always remember the now-viral 'World Cup Kiss' as Iker and the reporter interviewing him after Spain's epic win in South Africa ended up in a clinch on live TV, publicly confirming their relationship for the first time.

They went on to have two children, Martín and Lucas, and seemed like the perfect couple, meaning their separation in spring 2021 – only six months after they moved back to Madrid from Portugal – came as a shock to their millions of followers.

But Sara and Iker have remained close friends and actively share their boys' upbringing.

Their devastating ordeal, which started in May 2019, would be enough to test the strength of any marriage: Iker collapsed with a heart attack during training and was rushed to hospital to have stents fitted, and within the same week, Sara was diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer, needing surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Iker was forced to retire from football, and Sara ploughed her energies into the new clothing brand she had launched with her two closest friends, Slow Love.

This sustainable fashion label – which uses organic cotton, recycled plastic and discarded offcuts for its material – now sells nationwide in branches of Cortefiel.

Once recovered from their gruelling illnesses, Iker took up a job as training and management consultant at Real Madrid and Sara went full circle, returning to the radio station where her career had started out 15 years earlier.

Her cancer ordeal and her designer fashion collection have led to her becoming possibly even more of a household name outside Spain than her World Cup-winning ex-husband.