The Headless Cupid

The Headless Cupid

First edition (h/b)
Author	Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Illustrator	Alton Raible
Language	English
Genre	Children's novel
Publisher	Atheneum Books
Publication date	1971
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	203
ISBN	0-689-20687-9
OCLC	12873557

The Headless Cupid is a children's novel by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. First published in 1971, the book was a Newbery Honor book for 1972.

After his university-professor father remarries, eleven-year-old David Stanley must make a series of new adjustments: first to his new stepmother, then to the strange old house to which the family relocates, and finally to his new stepsister Amanda. Amanda, however, doesn't plan to make adjustment easy for anyone. She arrives wearing a ceremonial costume, with a pile of books on the supernatural and a caged crow in tow. Claiming to be a practicing witch, Amanda offers to share her occult knowledge with four Stanley children. David, while skeptical, follows Amanda's lead until a series of poltergeist activities, all centering around the strange headless wooden cupid carved in the front stair, infest the Stanley home. David suspects Amanda is responsible for the chaos, but, as the unexplained incidents mount in frequency and intensity, the troubled history of the old house comes to light. David must solve the mystery of the headless cupid before it destroys his new family.

Literary significance & criticism

This book has made the American Library Association's list of the one hundred most frequently challenged books for 1990-2000, due to the use of witchcraft by the children.