This is a book for fourth through sixth grade readers. I didn't like the book, and I think that if you're a student considering reading it, then you should try Sammy Keyes mysteries, The Graveyard Book, or Skeleton Creek before reading this one.


This book was a Newbery Honor book in 1971. At the time, there wasn't much out there for adolescents. Although probably good adolescent literature for its time, there are much stronger pieces of literature out there today. The plot seems too contrived and the fact that five kids are left alone most of the time seems unbelievable. Also, the family relationships aren't described, and the parents are flat characters without much depth. This is a book controversial for its depictions of witchcraft, but I am more concerned with the poor plot and character development!

I was 12 when I first picked up this book, I had just move hundreds of miles away from my home to a new school new step family and knew nobody. Honestly I only desided to read it because the two main characters were David and Amanda. David and Amanda were the names of 2 cousins I missed very much.
But after that it was the story that carried it, it was the very first book I read completely and then read again. I fell in love with the characters as well as the author. At the time 1989 I could only get my hands on this one and the next in the series (The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case) So I had to deal with reading each and every one of this authors other titles I could find at my schools and the local public library. Over the years I have looked at different libraries and found a few, but over the last 2 years I have discovered the internet and I no long have any limits to which ones I can get and read. I have bought the ones I read and loved so long ago. I have read so many more of her books, I'm 33 year old adult married with kids, who collects every single one of her books, seeing me reading title after title of books written for 12 years olds. What can I say other then it is a piece of my childhood I don't want forgotten.

When I discovered Shirley Jackson's work, a few years back, I had the unique experience of wanting to find her ghost somewhere and coax her back to my house for visits.

Let me clarify: I did not wish to raise her from the dead and sit with her, and learn from her (a natural feeling I have, with several beloved authors). No, more specifically: I wanted to hang out with her ghost.

Was this because Shirley Jackson's work leaned toward the supernatural? I don't know. Probably.

All I know is that I am in that same weird position again. Now I'm hoping Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ghost shows up, too. I want to hang out with her ghost.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder was an American writer who had an almost inexhaustible writing career. Seriously, this woman must have ignored every human being around her, as she cranked out novel after novel after novel. All the photos I have found of her depict an exceptionally thin woman as well, and I wonder if she ever wasted time on meals, either.

She was incredibly prolific, yet I managed to miss all of her middle grades and YA books, at least when I was the age that I would have sought her reads.

Well, I've discovered them now. And, I promise, I'm enjoying them as much as my 13-year-old.

Ms. Snyder has an unusual habit of writing children as more mature than their chronological ages, and this is a trait that typically drives me insane. I can't stand it when writers get children's dialogue wrong, and I can't stand it when they attribute a maturity or a wisdom to them that just doesn't match their age.

And yet, what she does works. I don't know how, it just does.

Interestingly, she almost always features an 11-year-old somewhere in her stories, and she wrote, once, that her students “had given me a deep appreciation of the gifts and graces that are specific to individuals with 10 or 11 years of experience as human beings. It is, I think, a magical time – when so much has been learned, but not yet enough to entirely extinguish the magical reach and freedom of early childhood.”

Personally, I think Ms. Snyder imbues just a little too much maturity in her fictional kids than is entirely accurate to their ages, and it's interesting to me that it is not my 11-year-old who is invested in these stories yet, but my 13-year-old. Further evidence to support my suspicions.

But, wow, did she understand human psychology, and did she understand kids! Add a little hint of the supernatural and WHAM-O: she achieved the magic formula for turning pages.

This particular middle grades book, published in 1971, introduced my daughter and me to the Snyder family and their potentially creepy new home that may or may not house a poltergeist.

(But no poltergeist is as scary as an unhappy daughter with a new step-family).

At one of the library's booksales, I picked up a bunch of books that I liked or were super-popular when I was in elementary school. This is the first one I've actually read, and it was fun to indulge the nostalgia. While resolution at the end was a little too quick, I thought, the rest of it was still good!

A middle school book about the supernatural and poltergeists. The Stanley family moves into an old house and strange things are happening
A timeless book I wish I had read when I was young

A return to my past. I remember this book as being creepy...and an author I enjoyed. It took me some work to track down the book--- it isn't for sale at the bookstores around here, my local libraries (I have access to a city one and a university one) didn't carry it--- I ended up ordering it through ILL and getting a 1971 edition.
The book holds up to 2018. It does NOT hold up to my memories. I remember being slightly creeped out as a kid, but this wasn't truly a ghost story. This is more two families blending to become one and the things that happen when a young teen manipulates the family to get what she wants--- but the story was interesting and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the last chapter where some spook showed up. David and his three younger siblings move into a large house with their father and new stepmom. Shortly after their new stepsister appears and starts teaching her younger siblings about the occult. Spooky things start to happen, but sadly, nothing that can't be explained.
Read if you are 11 and like scary stuff.

2019 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: Read a ghost story.

My daughter and I finally finished reading this today. I remember really loving it when I was younger, and while I love David and his siblings, Blair especially, their stepsister, Amanda, really was unlikeable for most of the story.
The paranormal elements in this book, which feature an initiation into the world of the occult and a seance may give some parents pause when introducing this to their young ones. There is also mention of a poltergeist and its shenanigans.
The characters are unique and I like that the story touches on some more difficult issues like being a blended family and the death of a parent.

I hope folks in the Newbery discussion group, or other reviewers, can say more about this story to convince it's worthy of a Newbery Honor. To me it seemed almost like any other 'issues' novel, with the stepsister having trouble adapting to her new family. Her version of acting out is original, and there are some memorable details, but I didn't particularly enjoy my read and would not have when I was young, either.

Some bits that may prompt discussion, in our Children's Books group:

"Once, David had decided to make a project of watching Skip to find out about being cool. He had decided that being cool was never being embarrassed or nervous or bashful. It was also never taking anything, or anybody, very seriously. It was especially cool to be bored when other people were taking themselves seriously...."

"... he'd asked his mother if she believed in ghosts, and she'd said that she didn't disbelieve in anything that made the world more exciting."

Amanda says " I wasn't trying to get the weeding done. I was just practicing my powers. An important part of being an occult person is developing your power over other people."

Blair is an interesting character. Even though he's the first, sometimes the only, person to notice things, even David doesn't take him seriously enough. For example when he points out that Amanda is afraid of snakes, and David says, no, it's Molly who is.

The independence the children are given is shocking. They haven't been demonstrating responsibility, but still the 11 yo, the 12 yo, and three little children are left on their own all day one time, and several hours at least once else.

"When she looked at David, he did something he hadn't planned to do--he stared back at her. It was a long straight look--the kind of cool look he'd never been able to get just right before. But what surprised him was it wasn't really cool at all, because what was really behind it was anger."

This is the book that sparked my interest in witchy and magical things, back when I was about 10 years old. Even though the book has really not much to do with magic, but is more about a troubled and angry teen having difficulty adjusting to her new living situation. (That is, it's no Harry Potter and none of the characters are the least bit magical except for maybe Blair, who maybe possibly has that "I See Dead People" thing going on). Doesn't matter. This is the book that started it all for me. I've loved magical stuff ever since!

But back to The Headless Cupid: I first read this book when I was about 10 years old and loved it. I have so many memories of reading it, of being absolutely 100% absorbed in the story, the characters, the mystery...everything. When I recently discovered it at a library book sale, of course I snapped it up. I was excited to re-read it and see if it held up to my memories....and kind of afraid that I'd discover the magic gone upon revisiting it nearly 30 years later.

The great news is The Headless Cupid was every bit as awesome as I remembered. However, I did bring to it a different, more mature perspective. A deeper layer, if you will. One I wasn't really mature enough to catch the first time around. That is, I never realized just how troubled Amanda's character truly is: The heartbreaking devotion to a father who was obviously neglectful and who used money and presents in place of love and quality time... The anger toward her mother, whom she blamed for her parents separating... The lengths she would go to show that displeasure (The interest in the supernatural that seemed to exist only to piss her mom off. The elaborate haunting hoax). The first time around, I never saw Amanda as a problem child. This time I did. The first read, I thought she was cool and clever. This time I felt sorry for her. And I found I didn't like her nearly as much as I did before. Poor kid. I felt her issues were resolved a bit too quickly and easily, but hey....we're talking a kids book from the early 80s. Times and books were different back then. There's a whole undercurrent there, another subtle story, one beneath the main plot. One the author only hints at. But once you see it, it can't be unseen. This gave me an even greater appreciation for the story, for the writing.

But for the most part, the story I loved and remembered was still there in all its atmospheric and mysterious glory. The main plot, the characters, the whole slightly creepy vibe present throughout. And this made me very happy.

Beloved childhood favorites revisited so rarely retain most, if not all, of their magic. But this was a rare case when this is exactly what happened.

I remember reading this when it first came out and loving it. I was nine then, and I read it at least three or four times. I even wrote a poem from the cupid's point of view! I shared that with the children's librarian and she loved it and they printed it in the library column of the local paper. (And she kept it and I never got it back, either.)

I just re-read the book for the first time in 41 years and I'm sorry to say, it didn't hold up for me. Not least, of course, because I've lost all interest in the poltergeist/supernatural/woo-woo thing, but aside from that--it's just one big ol' letdown. It's obvious what's going on, the explanation is beyond pedestrian, and then the ending with the box etc just seems patched on. The first part made me itch, and the second part made me impatient. I see that there's a whole Stanley Family Series, which probably explains a lot. I caught myself skimming, and that's never a good sign.

9/3/23 addendum: I just finished re-reading this as a bedtime book with my daughter. I remember reading this when I was in fourth-grade, and my daughter just recently started back to school as a fourth-grader. She wasn't sure about this to begin with, but as we kept reading it, she really got into it. It may be a little dated, but it didn't seem to affect her enjoyment.

I remember seeing “Poltergeist” in the theater when I was ten, and it terrified me. I especially recall the scene in which the guy starts ripping his own face off. I think I screamed at the top of my lungs through that entire scene, covering my eyes with my hands but peeking every second or two to see if it ended. My sister, 6, was also screaming and wailing.

(Funny story: my sister was a blubbering mess of tears by the end of the movie, which elicited a lot of disapproving and horrible stares toward my mom from other movie patrons. She was kind of mortified, because she hadn’t wanted to see it, or bring the kids, in the first place, but we were with relatives visiting in town who had wanted to see it, so she reluctantly agreed. Anyway, walking out of the theater, my sister---tears miraculously dried---excitedly screamed, “That was awesome! I wanna see it again!” Which pretty much speaks to the power of a good scary movie. I’ve loved horror movies ever since, myself.)

There is a long history of classical literature involving angry ghosts, haunted houses, and children, starting with some of Aesop’s Fables to Henry James’s “Turn of the Screw” to Stephen King’s “The Shining”. Many childrens’ and young adult authors have found fertile ground with haunted house/poltergeist stories, because children (some, at least) love a good scare.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s “The Headless Cupid” was written in 1971, but I would hazard a guess that it gained a resurgence in popularity around 1982, which is when “Poltergeist” came out in theaters. I’m fairly certain that was about the time I read it.

Reading it again, for the first time in 38 years, is a bit weird. I may have grown older and matured somewhat, experienced a lot of things which have shaped a worldview vastly different from my 10-year-old self, but there’s still a part of me that got a goosebumpy thrill after reading it.

Snyder is a wonderful writer, regardless of genre or age-group, but her story is definitely targeted to children in the 10-13 age group, what some call “tweeners”. Not that people in their 40s can’t enjoy it.

The story is centered around David Stanley, the eldest of four children, who, along with a new stepmom and a new old house out in the country, has also inherited a new older stepsister. Amanda’s not that much older---she’s 12 and David’s 11---but she seems much older and wiser based on the fact that she lived in the city and has a certain inexplicable demeanor about her.

She’s kind of quiet, always sequestered in her own private bedroom for hours a day, and she doesn’t seem to enjoy the pleasures of living in the large old estate. Eventually, though, she starts to open up to David, who discovers that she is fascinated with the occult and the supernatural. When weird things start happening around the house, David and Amanda play detective and discover that the house they currently live in was once considered haunted.

Is the ghost that once haunted the place back? Or is there something else going on? Amanda is sure that it is a real poltergeist, but David has a suspicion that it’s something a little less supernatural.

To say more would be spoilers, of course.

“The Headless Cupid” is as fun to read now as it was 38 years ago. Snyder also supposedly wrote a few sequels starring the Stanley kids. It might be fun to check those out, too.

Mystery