Painting the Galaxy Pink: Megan E. Bryant, Space Princess Cosma: Sparkle Surprise Party (with stickers), (New York: Grisset & Dunlap, 2005).

I’m not sure it’s possible to sink lower. Think Pink.

It’s Princess Cosma’s birthday and an invitation to a surprise arrives in a little rocket. She puts on her space dress and goes to find her best friend Princess Nebula. Various opportunities arise for the reader to place a sticker on the rocket, on Princess Nebula’s hand, and on various parts of the galaxy.

But there is something unexpected:

Princess Cosma and Princess Nebula hurried over to the Eclipse Express, where they caught a speeding comet…
Before long, the two princesses reached the very last stop on the Eclipse Express—a tiny asteroid where the moon blocked most of the sun. The glittering ring of sunshine gave Princess Cosma just enough light to find the other star. Which is –bafflingly—in a cloud.

At odd moments such as that one, the writer has tucked in some factoids. Otherwise the book has one character in a space helmet, the other not. Stars that are both burning energy sources and pretty shapes which can be made into the Princess Cosma Nebula.

A very strange book, but with all that, recognisably science fiction.