The front cover of the book featuring Rudolph, Santa Claus and the Flyers
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: A Retelling of the New Animated Movie is a 1998 book based on the film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie.
It was written by Susan Korman and was illustrated by Roy Richardson and June Brigman.
Plot[]
At the North Pole in the town of Santa's Village, Santa's helpers are getting ready for Christmas with the Elves making toys and Rudolph and the other young reindeer train for The Reindeer Games where Santa would choose the strongest and bravest reindeer to draw his sleigh. Rudolph dreams of becoming a Flyer, but is told by Arrow and the other reindeer that he can never be a Flyer because of his red nose, whilst his best friend Zoey tells him not to listen and says that she thinks his nose makes him special.
Meanwhile the evil ice queen Stormella, who hates Christmas and had closed her bridge off to Santa's helpers several years ago and vowed to punish anyone who crosses it, declares that this will be the year she will destroy Christmas.
At Reindeer Stadium on the day of The Reindeer Games, Rudolph takes part in The Sleigh Race and is just about to win the race when Arrow taunts him again about his nose. Rudolph tries to ignore him, but his nose glowed bright in anger and when he crosses the finishing line, he is disqualified by the judges for breaking the rules with his nose.
Believing he will never be a Flyer now, Rudolph runs away from Santa's Village and is secretly helped by the Sprites of the Northern Lights to find a warm cave and he befriends a fox named Slyly and a polar bear named Leonard. Back in Santa's Village, Rudolph's parents Blitzen and Mitzi along with Santa are worried about Rudolph whilst Zoey goes to look for him and crosses Stormella's bridge where she is surrounded by Stormella and her wolves and is then imprisoned.
One night, Rudolph thinks about his family and friends back home, when the Sprites appear and tell him of Zoey's capture and say that only Rudolph can help with his nose. In the morning, Rudolph, Slyly and Leonard set out to Stormella's castle where Slyly stays behind and Rudolph and Leonard go inside and hear singing and find Zoey in the dungeon. Stormella discovers them and locks them the dungeon before leaving to cast a storm to ruin Christmas. Luckily, Slyly steals the dungeon key and frees the others, but they are tracked by Stormella's Wolves.
Stormella tries to freeze Zoey, but the light from Rudolph's nose causes her to fall off the ledge she is on. Two elves named Boone and Doggle arrive to take the gang back to Santa's Village with Rudolph worrying about saving Christmas and as they had defeated Stormella but wonders if it's too late to stop her storm. Back at Santa's Village, Santa says that he will have to cancel The Christmas Eve Launch because of the storm and the fact that Rudolph and Zoey are still missing.
Just then, Rudolph and Zoey return and Santa asks Rudolph to help guide his sleigh with his nose. Rudolph proudly leads the sleigh with his dream finally coming true: He was a Flyer at Last.
Mistakes/Differences from the film[]
- On the front cover of the book, Vixen and Comet have switched places, with Comet next to Prancer and Vixen next to Cupid. Also on the front cover, Dasher and Dancer are at the front of the team whilst Donner and Blitzen are at the back, where in the film, it was the other way round. The Flyers also lack their Medals of Valor, but at the end of the book, Rudolph wears one. On the last page, Blitzen is at the front of the team with Dasher.
- In the book, Rudolph's antlers are smaller than they are in the film and resemble the antlers of his Rankin/Bass version as a yearling. They're even smaller than Arrow's that remain the size they are in the film. Though it could a mistake or maybe the illustrators wanted to make Arrow older than Rudolph.
- Arrow's fur changes in the book: in one scene, his fur is the same colour as it is the film, but in The Junior Reindeer Games scene, it's dark brown.
- In the book, Zoey has blue eyes and spots whilst in the film, she has brown eyes and no spots.
- Rudolph and Zoey's romantic feelings for each other are omitted from the book and the two are portrayed as just best friends.
- Ridley, Zoey's father, Zoey's mother and Mrs. Claus are absent from the book.
- Mitzi's eyes are brown in the book instead of the blue ones she has in the film.
- Santa Claus's eyes are blue in the book instead of brown as they are in the film.
- In the book, Stormella falls to her presumed death after being blinded by Rudolph's nose unlike the film where she was saved by Rudolph and became nice.
- In the scene where Boone and Doggle bring the gang back to Santa's Village, Rudolph's nose is black.
Trivia[]
- It seems that according to this book, Rudolph still attended Reindeer School as a teenager since Mrs. Prancer appears in once scene looking sadly at Rudolph when he is being teased by Arrow and two other young reindeer.
- It also appears that the start of the book is meant to take place a short time before The Junior Reindeer Games rather than at Rudolph's birth at the start of the film since Rudolph already has antlers and it is mentioned that Stormella closed her bridge several years ago.