Staff at Wokingham Library have gathered together a collection of books that have had the distinction of being banned around the world for a whole variety of reasons.

British public libraries do not censor material on moral, political, religious, racial or gender grounds and access to information is not restricted on any grounds apart from that of the law, however this is not the case everywhere in the world.

• 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll was banned in the province of Huan in China for portraying animals acting on the same level as humans.

• 'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Eric Remarque was banned in Nazi Germany for portraying German military forces in a poor light.

• 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' by J.K. Rowling was banned and burned in some schools in the USA for allegedly promoting witchcraft.

• 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell was banned in the USSR until the 1980s for its allegorical depiction for the rise and fall of socialism and Stalin’s totalitarian regime.

• Roald Dahl's 'Revolting Rhymes', which parodies classic children’s fairy tales and replaces the traditional “happy every after” endings with something a lot more gruesome regularly appears on the American Library Association’s list of banned and challenged books.

A selection of these books will be on display and available to borrow at Wokingham Library as part of its celebrations for National Libraries Day on Saturday February 4.

Richard Alexander, head of libraries and lifelong learning, said: "The staff at Wokingham Library have worked very hard to set up this promotion and we hope it will be of great interest to residents and customers of the Wokingham Borough."

For more information about activities happening on National Libraries Day in the borough’s libraries please visit: www.wokingham.gov.uk/libraries-news