I read it with a book group as an adult and was surprised to find that the Cambridge Public Library had it in the childrens' section. There are things I liked about it, but it needs All The Content Warnings (at least it serves you the racism up front, and animal harm is such a persistent theme that one will catch on quickly, but the harm to kids takes longer). There are probably kids that would like it, but I suspect I wouldn't have liked it as a kid any more than I liked Lord of the Flies, which I read expecting it to be another kids' survival story, or than I liked my dad's attempt to cheer up 12-year-old me with Edward Gorey.

(There's a downloadable copy available on the Internet Archive, though I'm not sure about the legality and it has some important pages missing, which is why I had gone to the library to get a copy.)