A complaint by a library patron that a children's book in Chinese is racist has led to its removal by the National Library Board (NLB) following a review.

The picture book, Who Wins? by Wu Xing Hua, features a "dark-skinned" boy with "oily curly hair" named Mao Mao, who is depicted as an aggressive school bully.

"Mao Mao" is Chinese for "hairy".

The Straits Times reported that the NLB said on Sunday evening, July 19, that it is currently reviewing the book, "in consultation with our Library Consultative Panel, which is an independent and citizen-based panel".

NLB said all copies of the book have been removed from the libraries during the review period.

What did the book show?

Who Wins? is targeted at children aged seven to nine.

It was published in 2018 in Singapore by Marshall Cavendish Education and is part of a series of five books, Amazing Adventures Of Pi Pi.

ST reported that the patron who complained about the book is a 42-year-old woman, Estella Young.

She wrote about the contents of the book in a Facebook post on Friday evening, July 17.

Her Facebook alias is Umm Yusof.

She said she had borrowed the book from Bedok Library on Thursday, to mark the Racial Harmony event this year -- a day before her Facebook post was put up.

She had wanted to read the book to her son, aged eight, but then discovered the "astoundingly racist local book" that "described in explicitly racialised terms" the villain, "in contrast to all the other characters who are depicted as fair-skinned".

She also wrote: "What on earth possessed Marshall Cavendish Education to publish a book in which the sole dark-skinned character is irredeemably nasty - especially when his appearance is irrelevant to the plot?"

As July 21 Racial Harmony Day this year occurs during the one-week mid-term break, schools commemorated the occasion the week prior, from July 13 to 17.