And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Hi everyone,

Due to upcoming testing and traveling, I will be suspending The Unmasked Raccoon for the month of June.

To keep yourself cold during the long, scorching days ahead, I recommend reading

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the iconic story of a man trying to recover from the consequences of playing God and of a disfigured creation with more love and curiosity in him than in any living man.  While the original book does not have a village riot or a bumbling lab assistant named Igor, it features a chase across Europe and enough layers of narratives within narratives to make Inception jealous.
• The Schwa was Here by Neal Shusterman, in which a kid who blends in so easily that he is “functionally invisible” and always marked absent at school tries to fit in before he disappears altogether.

Happy summer!

Love,

Jonah