A US school district has banned To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn after a parent complained about use of racist language.

The books were removed from classrooms and school libraries in Accomack County, Virginia.

It came after Marie Rothstein-Williams, the mother of a mixed race child, told a school board meeting: "I'm not disputing this is great literature, but there is so much racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can’t get past that, and right now we are a nation divided as it is."

She added: “What are we teaching our children? We’re validating that these words are acceptable. They are not acceptable. Truly we are divided. We will lose our children if we continue to say that this is okay, that we validate these words when we should not."

Accomack County has 5,000 pupils in its schools and 37 per cent of them are black.

The books have been temporarily removed while a committee assesses whether they should be permanently banned.