the body in charge of elementary and secondary schools in southwestern Ontario recently authorised the ritualistic burning of books for ‘educational purposes’. In what they described as a ‘flame purification’ ceremony, almost five thousand books were removed from shelves and were destroyed or recycled if they were judged to contain outdated racial stereotypes. Some of those that were burned had their ashes used as fertiliser to plant a tree. An uplifting, progressive and environmentally conscious gesture, if one ignores the overtones of Fahrenheit 451.
