Kosinski's Steps (1968), a sequel to The Painted Bird, won the National Book Award for fiction. This work focuses on the boy as an adult who becomes fixated on retaliation for what he suffered as a child.

The Empire of the Sun (1984), written by J. G. Ballard, chronicles the semi-autobiographical experiences of an eleven-year-old British boy named Jim living in Shanghai China during World War II. When the war comes to Shanghai, Jim is separated from his parents and sent to a prison camp, where he faces the harsh realities of war and learns important lessons about human nature.

In Night (1958), Elie Wiesel's semi-autobiographical tale focuses on a teenager's internment in a Nazi concentration camp, and his overwhelming feelings of guilt for having survived when so many others, including his family, did not.

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, published in 1947, chronicles the courageous life of its author, a gifted Jewish teenager, after she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Anne later died in a German concentration camp.