Ender's Game

Another novel where a gifted child is selected by a system and given knowledge and responsibility beyond what childhood should bear — and where the cost of that selection is never fully acknowledged by the adults

The inverse argument — children without adult manipulation also become violent. Together with Ender's Game, they cover both directions: children corrupted by adults, children corrupted by the absence of adults

The direct sequel — Ender 3,000 years later, practicing atonement, encountering another alien species. The book Card actually wanted to write, for which Ender's Game was backstory

The military SF ancestor Ender's Game both inherits from and argues against — Heinlein's book endorses military culture uncritically, Card's asks what military culture costs the children it consumes

Children used by states as instruments of political and military power — Collins uses spectacle where Card uses psychology, but both novels are fundamentally about what adults do to children in the name of necessity

Another precocious child protagonist in a science fiction universe grappling with collective vs. individual consciousness — L'Engle's hive mind (IT) is the villain where Card's is the victim