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In this essay I examine how childhood is represented in the novels Populärmusik från Vittula (2000) by Mikael Niemi and Häng City (2022) by Mikael Yvesand. Both of these works are intended for an adult audience, or at least not written with children and young adults in mind. Yet, they both focus almost exclusively on childhood and feature children as protagonists. In Niemi’s novel this is done by an adult narrator who narrates autobiographicaly about his childhood, while Yvesand’s novel is told in present tense by an autonarrating I. Although both books differ in major ways, they both offer an ambition to represent childhood as authentically as possible through different means. Childhood may be elusive, and perhaps even impossible, to represent in literature, but through fantasy, distance, closeness and other means these books offer different ways to depict childhood respectfully.