A kid's book-- I knew it!
I knew the movie was based on a book. After watching it, I was wondering if was a children's story, since the narrative is fairly simple and straightforward, it's told from a kid's point of view, there's a dog involved and the abuses depicted are fairly tame-- most of the unpleasantaries take place off-screen (like, don't you wonder what their poor dad's life was like in that prison camp?). Sure enough, it's a newbury award-winning children's book.
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