Attack of the Killer Bagpipes

I am a huge bibliophile and sometimes I like to go to search engines like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and type in random words to see what they come up with. I put the word 'bagpipes' (I know, shocking) in there recently and noticed that there is an interesting assortment of children's books that focus on the good old bagpipes.

I don't own any of these books, I haven't read any of them either, so I have no idea what their content is like, but they sound like they'd be crazy fun to read.

Max Power and the Bagpipes by Suse Moore and Andy Elkerton. Max and his sheepdog Haggis deal with a power outage when the circus comes to town. This book seems to also be centered around some environmental conservation themes. Personally I think it'd be cooler if the kid's name was Haggis. Then Haggis could play the bagpipes...hee hee.

Noddy and the Magic Bagpipes by Enid Blyton. The title alone makes this one a winner. Noddy is a young boy (who looks like he belongs at the North Pole) who is taking bagpipe lessons but he doesn't practice...and guess what? His bagpipes are magical and start running around town causing mass chaos. Who will stop them?? I think a nice adult spin on this book would be staged around an attack of magical killer bagpipes.

Sandy Chisholm's Chanter Lessons by Scott Williams.
Set in Nova Scotia, Canada in the 1950's, Sandy is a young boy who learns to play the bagpipes. He starts on the chanter of course, and I would hope that by the end of the book he's on to the pipes. Sounds like a nice juvenile historical fiction book.

And then there's a whole slew of mystery books.

The classic is the Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene. I've never read a Nancy Drew book, but I might have to give this one a try. Nancy troops all over Scotland, culminating in a kilt clad Nancy climbing Ben Nevis and playing the bagpipes. Sounds like a good one.

Mystery of the Waterloo Bagpipes by Donald B. Willis. This is a newer book, published in 2001. But it's set in 1957 in Ohio at their Scottish Highlands Games. A set of bagpipes played at the Battle of Waterloo is a focal point of the games, the priceless pipes are stolen and five pipers take on the case.

Mystery of the Missing Bagpipes by Kathy Lynn Emerson. This one's set in Maine. A set of valuable bagpipes is (wait for it) missing! A young kid is the suspect so he teams up with another kid and the duo work the case. Happy reading and pipe on!