Bacary Sagna joined local children at Central Children's Library, Islington on Thursday 3 December as part of his commitment to the Premier League's literacy campaign aimed at encouraging families to read together.
The French International participated in games and a Q & A session with the youngsters before presenting them with certificates to celebrate their participation and success in the scheme. Youngsters who had shown considerable improvement in their reading skills were awarded match tickets to Arsenal games.
The initiative, Premier League Reading Stars, sees one player from each Premier League Club across the country nominate their favourite adult and children's book with a list then created of all their favourite reads to encourage families to read together at sessions at each of the 20 Premier League club's local libraries .
Bacary had chosen two books; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling and his favourite adult read, The Soul of a Butterfly by Muhammad Ali with Hana Yasmeen Ali.
Bacary said: "It's really good to come here today and meet the children. It's great to think that footballers can help and be role models in encouraging children to read, but more importantly enjoy reading. It was great to talk about the books and play games based on them, just to check they had read them! They did have some tricky questions for me though!"
The reading initiative is a partnership between the Football Foundation, the National Literacy Trust, the Premier League and the Arts Council England and will be supported by a series of family reading groups at libraries across the country. Three Islington Council libraries, Central Library, North Library and N4 Library, are all participating in the scheme to promote families reading together.
Children taking part in the scheme select free books to keep and additional incentives provided by the Club to encourage attendance and achievement include stadium tours, match tickets and the opportunity to meet their designated Reading Star from a local football club. Participating schools include Grafton, St. Jude & St. Paul's, Newington Green and Drayton Park and the initiative works with children in years 5 and 6.
Arsenal in the Community department's John Olaleye said: "Arsenal Football Club has always been a great believer in combining football with educational initiatives to help improve numeracy and literacy skills, so it's great that we're participating once again in this successful scheme for the seventh year running. We also have our eighth Reading Star confirmed for next year, and while I cannot unveil the player backing the scheme this season, I do know that he will be a great champion for reading amongst families in Islington."
