Juliette wants to do sports. But it's not easy at all. Tennis, for example, is brilliant, except that between one racket and another there's a ball and a net in the way. Football would be interesting, but the other children think she's too small. Not to mention boxing, especially if you use boxing gloves to punch a ball. There's also horseback riding, with a pony, and golf, with a swing, but neither horseback riding nor golf can be practiced everywhere. Dancing also has its charm, but it takes a long time to find fluidity and grace. There is, however, the bicycle.

The bicycle gives Juliette a sense of freedom, autonomy, independence, exhilaration, perhaps happiness, that no other sport can provide. You pedal and at the same time you travel, you cross borders, you explore, you discover, you dream, and in the meantime you also discover your own nature, your own character, your own goals. Even on a tricycle. But in France, as you know, the most desired destination is always that of the month of July: "I have to train for the Tour de France," Juliette admits.

It won't be tennis and it won't be football, it won't be boxing and it won't be horseback riding, it won't be golf and it won't be dancing, it won't even be cycling that takes hold of Juliette. It will be home gymnastics, on the legs of dad or mom, lying on the ground lifting their daughter with their legs and feet and making her take off as if she were an airplane.

"Juliette fait du sport" is a little book for children, written and illustrated by Doris Lauer for Editions Lito in 2001, miraculously discovered in a book crossing. But little children's books resist time and endure through time, even through the time of the Tour de France. And thanks to these little books it's as if everyone remains, even if only for a few minutes, eternally children.