The great thing about following your child's interests is that they are infinitely more interesting than anything you could dream up on your own. I'm not exactly the spontaneous type. I like my ducks in a row (a really, really straight row). The only thing I like better than making a list is crossing things off that list. But what I've found is that if I rein in my compulsiveness a bit, my children lead me to heights my list would never permit me to go. That's how our love affair with The Phantom of the Opera began.

It was a casual affair at first. My son Jonathan, then 6, was introduced to the infamous Opera Ghost through PBS' "Wishbone." Since all I knew about the story was that there was a mask involved, we searched out more information on the Internet. We tapped into a musical gallery and spent the afternoon listening to a sampling from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway production. I must admit, it was amusing to watch my son belt out, "Sing, my Angel of Music!" as my four-year-old daughter responded at fever pitch and swooned as Christine.

That appeased us for a while. But when my mother sent us a CD featuring highlights from the musical, the spark was again ignited. There were days when every member of our household was milling around either humming or singing out, "The Phantom of the Opera is there . . . inside my mind." Since he was, evidently, still there inside our minds, we threw ourselves headfirst into the high society life of Paris in the late 1800's. We began reading Gaston Leroux's 1911 novel The Phantom of the Opera, which started the whole craze. (I was as surprised as anyone that Lon Chaney's cinematic feat as the Phantom was based on the novel, not the other way around.)

Through Leroux, we discovered that the sad saga of the Phantom, the outcast who lived beneath the Paris Opera House hiding his disfigured face, was based on actual events. We learned that he was not a monster, but a genius, a musical prodigy, an accomplished inventor. We wrung our hands over his unrequited love for opera ingénue Christine Daae, to whom he appeared as an Angel of Music. We despaired over his thoughtless taking of lives (at the same time recalling that he had lived as a caged animal in a circus freak show). We cried when we read that his mother had rejected him, a fact movingly expressed in the musical: "This face, which earned a mother's fear and loathing; a mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing." And then came the climax, when the Phantom's mask fell away, and Christine dissolved years of pain with an act of kindness even his mother had refused him: a kiss. It became a lesson indelibly etched in our hearts, a poignant reminder to think twice about playground taunts and unkind words.

Of course we learned other lessons as well. We discovered what life was like in Paris in the 1880's. We received our first introduction to the opera. We learned about architecture and the construction of the Paris Opera House, how its 17 stories, numerous trap doors, and underground lake set the stage for the Phantom's antics. We learned what a "portcullis" was, which came in handy once we backtracked from the 19th century to the Middle Ages. We pored over the libretto of the Broadway musical, deciphering the metaphors and relishing in the poetic quality of the lyrics. We listened circumspectly to the "Music of the Night." I guess for something that wasn't on my list, it proved to be a pretty rich educational experience.