Blizzard Parent Guide

Ten-year-old Jess Cameron (Jennifer Pisana) is heartbroken when her best friend Bobby moves away. Relegating herself to the bedroom and hours of abject misery, she refuses to even go sledding, her all-time favorite activity.

As time passes, her parents begin to worry. Deciding the best medicine for Jess’s ailment is a visit from their eccentric Aunt Millie (Brenda Blethyn), Mom and Dad call up the world-traveling relative and invite her for Christmas.

Stampeding up the front steps with piles of luggage in tow, Aunt Millie is a welcome sight for everyone. With open arms, she comforts her little niece and then proceeds to tell her a magical story about a young ice skater and a gifted reindeer from Santa’s herd.

Years earlier, a young girl named Katie Andrews (Zoe Warner) wanted to learn to ice-skate more than anything. Struggling to don a pair of worn out hand-me-downs from her older brothers, she is spotted on the local outdoor rink by former Olympian Otto Brewer. He offers to give her lessons on the condition that she gets a pair of figure skates. Under his watchful eye, Katie’s talent begins to blossom.

But layoffs at her father’s factory force the family to pack up and move to the city. Now the only ice available is at an exclusive indoor rink which restricts access to members only. Mocked by the club’s reigning city champion Erin Scott-Pierce (Brittany Bristow), Katie longs to be back on the ice in her little hometown.

Meanwhile, a young reindeer at the North Pole is learning to fly. Endowed with three extraordinary abilities, Blizzard (voiced by Whoopie Goldberg) is able to visualize the sad child hundreds of miles away. But leaving Santa’s (Christopher Plummer) enchanted village and going to Katie’s aid will mean breaking nearly every one of the elf and reindeer rules. Facing the threat of banishment by the rigid, regulation enforcer, Archimedes (Kevin Pollak), Blizzard and her elf friend Jeremy (Jonathan Wilson) strike out to bring the gift of friendship and self-belief to one unhappy little girl.

Maybe LeVar Burton can credit his skill as a first-time film director to his eighteen years of experience as host and co-executive producer on the children’s program Reading Rainbow, his involvement in the epic movie Roots or his ongoing role in the Star Trek flicks. But regardless of where it came from, his talent in creating a children’s story is evident.

Depicting the emotions of a 10-year-old, that swing from angst to complete euphoria in a moment, Blizzard will surely resonate as a family classic with any kid who’s had to move or lost a friend.

About author

Kerry Bennett

Kerry Bennett is interested in media from both a journalist and parent perspective. Along with authoring articles for several family-oriented publications, she has written for Parent Previews for over 15 years. As a parent herself, she believes parents play a powerful role in teaching media literacy in their homes.