Under the Paris Opera House lives a disfigured musical genius who uses music to win the love of a beautiful opera singer.

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter...

"Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity...

Luigi the rooster wins fame and fortune when the star of the Cosmopolitan Opera Company and his understudy both come down with chicken pox on the same night.

A dog named Pasha joins the company of "Manon" at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, but on opening night she cannot resist singing along with the diva.

Teenaged soldier Noemi and an enemy robot, Abel, who's programmed to obey her commands, set out on an interstellar quest to save her home planet, Earth colony Genesis.

There are few art forms as visceral and emotional as opera--and few that are as daunting for newcomers. A Mad Love offers a spirited and indispensable tour of opera's eclectic past and present, beginning with Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1607, generally considered the first successful opera, through classics like Carmen and La Boheme, and spanning to Brokeback Mountain and The Death of Klinghoffer in recent years. Musician and critic Vivien Schweitzer...

Opera's colorful history is rich with exciting stories. Through conversational text, informative sidebars, and full-color photographs, young readers will learn about the talented people-composers, singers, musicians, stagehands, set and costume designers, makeup crews-and the technical wizardry that go into staging opera's lavish performances. There are even behind-the-scenes glimpses of many of today's great opera companies, including the Royal Opera...