The Greengage Summer repeats a theme that surfaces in many of Godden's own novels — the end of innocence and the corruption through maturing. A Candle for Saint Jude (1948) is set in the world of ballet, where girls, almost children, first discover love. But Rumer Godden does not view children as pure and good, she believes they also possess an innocent cruelty and selfishness. Like Joss, the children in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1963) ruthlessly use all means to achieve their ends. The theme of the cruelty of the young, is also reminiscent of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898).

Thomas Mann's Unordnung und fruhe s Leid (1926) also describes the problems and confusion that are caused by the awakening of sexual passion in adolescents.