The paper analyses different taboo topics in the corpus of selected contemporary Croatian children’s and adolescents’ novels, ranging from birth to sexuality and first sexual experiences, to alcoholism and drug abuse, to war, death, adoption, and different forms of abuse of the characters of children and adolescents. The theoretical framework of the paper includes a historical overview of Croatian and foreign authors dealing in various taboo topics at a given time. The study is based on a literary theory interpretation of eleven novels, some of which belong to the sub-group of children’s Croatian novel (Filip, dječak bez imena (Anto Gardaš), Bijeli patuljak (Nada Iveljić), Krik (Zlatko Krilić), Gumi-Gumi ili Djevojčica koja je preskočila nebesa (Zoran Pongrašić), Tko vjeruje u rode još (Nada Mihoković-Kumrić), Kupit će ti tata koturaljke (Melita Rundek)), while the others belong to adolescents’ Croatian novel (Ljudi bez mjesta (Tonča Anković), Zeleni pas (Nada Mihelčić), Pyama blues, (Jadranko Bitenc), Zaboravljeni sin (Miro Gavran), Djevac ili Patnje mladog Petra (Silvija Šesto-Stipančić)). The analysis focuses on the semantic plan of the novel: the taboo topics and motifs in the context of the characters of children and adolescents, growing up, reaching maturity, relationship to the characters in the world of adults, as well as the social background. It is suggested that taboo topics determine the plan of the novels, emphasising psychological characterization of the characters, and their social background. A majority of the characters of children and adolescents in the context of the selected topics are going through an intense period of maturation, they are unhappy, and unsatisfied with their role in the family, a minority is satisfied with their position, while the adult characters mostly function as the source of frustration for the characters of children and adolescents.