Despite their cheery appearances, stuffed animals are definitely not pretty on the inside. Any suspicions one may have that the Care Bears harbor hidden horrors are justified by this book. Conceptual artist Kent Rogowski turns overly cute teddies inside-out and sews them back up, snapping their portraits on a simple white background. The results are slightly less disturbing than the mal-transported monkey in David Cronenberg’s version of The Fly. The transformed bears suffer bent postures, droopy eys, and visible stitches resembling huge colorful scars. Tufts of fur sprout randomly from their strangely textured skin, as if the poor creatures underwent radiation experiments. After the initial repulsion to the still-smiling synthetic monsters, they actually begin to take on real personalities that their sugar coating tried to mask. Now I have to keep myself from wondering what my fellow humans would look like so exposed.

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