★★★☆☆ A slice of life ghost story

The Headless Cupid

Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Alton Raible (Illustrator)

Widower Jeffrey A. Stanley, a Geology professor with four kids, David (11), Janie (6), Blair (4), and Esther (4), has recently married artist Molly (surname unknown), who has a daughter Amanda (12). To save money, the Stanley family has moved to an old, broken-down house in the country, a house with a name, as Janie excitedly points out: the Old Westerly House. Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid begins with Amanda's arrival at this old house. But actually, before that, we have an Introduction by Snyder, which contains this character sketch of David

David, from whose point of view the story is told, is loosely based on a boy in one of the fifth-grade classes I taught—a boy who seemed to have a great deal of responsibility for his younger siblings, and who treated everyone with an amazingly mature kindness and sense of fair play.

So David is the hero. Then there is this about Amanda

Amanda, the would-be witch in my story, is David’s newly acquired stepsister. She is a twelve-year-old who is angry about her parents’ divorce and even angrier about her mother’s remarriage into a family with four younger children.

Amanda, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty much acts like a sociopath. Note that I said "acts like", not "is". Amanda, as Snyder points out, is going through some things and is not at this point in time quite her best self.

The Headless Cupid is a haunted house story. There are, it turns out, stories that the Old Westerly House, back when it was just the Westerly House, was haunted by a poltergeist. The manifestations begin again. The mystery of what is causing them is one of the main plot questions of the book. Is there anything supernatural going on? The other big plot point is Amanda's coming to terms with her new life.

This was a slice of life book -- there is nothing very remarkable about the Stanley family or what happens to them. It was not bad, but ultimately didn't grab my interest. The Headless Cupid is the first in a series of four novels about the Stanley family. I don't intend to read any more of them.

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