SOLVED. 90s Children’s book about little girl with mittens on string, who gets a panda toy, is a bumble bee with crepe paper flower at a part, angel in a school play & has boys throw snowballs with stones at her. [s]

[Georgie]

I think it has a red cover with an illustration of the panda in the toy shop window. I think she has a single mum, her mum makes the crepe paper flower and puts her in a stripy jumper to be the bumble bee costume at the party. She cries at the party because she’s overwhelmed. I can’t remember the name of the book or anything helpful like the girls name, if anyone can help I’d be so grateful.

[Becca]

Josie Smith at Christmas by Magdalen Nabb looks like a match. There's a snippet view available on Google Books - https://www.google.co.uk/books/editio... - and also a copy on archive.org, where I found these quotes:

Josie Smith opened her eyes and saw a fat brown and yellow striped body and a little black head and thin black legs, and when she turned round she had blue net wings.
"I'm a bee!" shouted Josie Smith. "A bee! A bumble bee!"

It was a panda. Not like an ordinary toy panda but just like a real panda sitting up with his fat paws sticking out and his fat tummy sticking out and a big woolly head bigger than Josie Smith’s own. Josie Smith stared in at the panda and the panda stared out at Josie Smith with sad black patches round his bright brown eyes.

“Mum! Mum! There’s a panda called Percy in the window and I want him for Christmas! Mum, can I? And I won’t ask for anything else, not even a tangerine! Can I?”

https://archive.org/details/josiesmit...

[Georgie]

Omg yes, thank you so much

[Kris]

Glad you found your book, Georgie.

Josie Smith at Christmas (book 3) of the Josie Smith series by Magdalen Nabb - Becca's find.