The House of Sixty Fathers is about a boy named Tien Pao. He lives in China during WW2. His village is destroyed by Japanese fighters. He and his family are the only survivers. Taking someone else’s sampan found floating on the ocean during the attack they rowed upstream as far as they could go. And there his parents found work. On only the second day, while his parents were out at work with their baby, he and the family pig are yelling and running around in the sampan it becomes untied to the mooring and the river takes him all the way back to his village, being guarded by Japanese soldiers. He makes his way slowly back to the city he came from.
Along the way he saves and travels with a soldier. With and without his friend he makes his way back to his city. Which at the moment he gets there being attacked by the Japanese!