The Headless Cupid

Über

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.