CUPID AND PSYCHE: A Love Story
By
Where many versions for children end with Psyche dropping lamp oil on her unseen husband and Cupid vanishing forever, Barth goes on to tell the rest of Apuleius' story--of Psyche's remorseful wandering, her bondage to Venus who sets her three seemingly impossible tasks, and her ultimate reunion with Cupid through Jupiter's intervention, lake many attempts to make myths into believable fiction, this makes you wonder why Cupid had to hide from his wife; Barth faces up to this natural question and uses it to advantage, having Cupid's dove companion chide him for expecting trust from Psyche without trusting her with his identity. An intelligent, graceful retelling--and Forberg's smokey drawings, each one accented with a bold terra cotta volute motif, are decorative if a bit girlish.