In Topsy-Turvy, Anya Jabour brings into sharp relief the way in which gender, race, slavery, and status shaped the lives of children in the American South before, during, and after the Civil War. She argues persuasively that the identities children developed in the antebellum era shaped their responses to the upheavals of the war years and their lives after the war's conclusion.

Introduction: Confederate childhoods -- Family and identity : growing up in a slave society -- Taking sides : children's perspectives on slavery, secession, and civil war -- Play and work : continuity and change in the Confederate South -- Refugees and runaways : dislocation and opportunity in a war zone -- Defeat and freedom : the reconstruction of southern childhood -- Memory and meaning : remembering slavery and the Civil War.