Today was the weekly trip to the Massy library, really the bibliothèque because the library is where you go to buy the books and we were just in a borrowing kind of mood. The entire walk there Joshua was insistent that all libraries have Dr. Seuss books or they are not really a library. I assured him that we would look extra hard today to try and find one. As the boys were looking around the children’s section I noticed there was a computer in between some of the shelves that was sitting there without any warnings about not touching it ,so I deduced that this must be where people search for the books in the library, also known as the card catalog in other parts of the world.

Having had years of computer experience and recently learning some new verbs on how to find things I was sure that if there was a Dr. Seuss book to be found, the computer would be able to guide me to the exact location. I have also used several French web sites and have found that the user interface is different from what I have grown accustomed to in the United States; so, what I would think to click on, I look for the opposite place on the page and click there and volià exactly what you need. So there was a big box in the middle of the page but I knew that was too obvious so I found another small box towards the top of the page on the right and typed Seuss and clicked the enter button, and volià 3 results were shown on the screen of French Dr. Seuss books.

Now began the fun part, how do the French order the books on the shelf? I knew they were not using the dewey decimal system which I know very well, because every shelf has the books sorted from A-Z with no numbers. But, I was able to figure out that one of the books was in the jeune (younger) section in the premier document section filled under R (still haven’t figured out why under R). So we went from shelf to shelf looking at the R books but we were not making any progress until I saw a sign hanging from the ceiling that said 1^st documents – (that’s the same as premier) and there in between all the other R’s was Comment le Grinch a vole Noël. I don’t know if all the words rhyme as well in this version but I do know that they changed Whoville to Chouville. Treasure found and 2 boys are very happy!