Armchair Audies (Bonus!) Category Report: Solo Narration - Female

I'm not an official Armchair Audies judge for the Solo Narration - Female category, but I listened to them all, and I'm opinionated, so I'm posting my report. (The Audies bring out all kinds of wonkiness in me. More audiobooks! MORE! I love my audiobooks.) (In case you hadn't noticed.)

So: the nominees are

THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE Lene Kaaberbøl, Agnete Friis Read by Katherine Kellgren (AudioGO) Read the review
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZL. Frank Baum Read by Anne Hathaway (Audible, Inc.) Read the review
THE UNSEEN GUESTMaryrose Wood Read by Katherine Kellgren (Harper Audio) Read the review
CALL THE MIDWIFEJennifer Worth Read by Nicola Barber (HighBridge Audio) Read the review
JULIET IN AUGUSTDianne Warren Read by Cassandra Campbell (Tantor Media) Read the review

And I've posted about Juliet in August and The Boy in the Suitcase.

A little about the others: 

Worth's Call the Midwife is anthropologically interesting. It's nice. But I never quite got past feeling like I was at a lecture, despite the nice descriptive details. Barber does a fine job of narrating, but I wasn't engaged. 

Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one gonzo loopdiloop of a book. I mean, the movie doesn't begin to do it justice. Lands where everything's made out of china, and magical wish-granting hats, and those slippers are silver, not ruby. Hathaway comes up with some funny voices and seems to fully enjoy the material, so it was fun to listen, even though she seemed to breathe in odd places sometimes. 

Wood's The Unseen Guest is the third in her funny Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series. It's kid lit, about a governess who finds herself in charge of three foundling siblings who appear to have been raised by wolves. They speak in a series of yips and howls, and mangled words, and are wont to go dashing out after their pet squirrel or otherwise end up in hot water. Not helping matters are the mysterious happenings with the other inhabitants of Ashton Place and the specter of threats from unknown external sources. Kellgren proves again her versatility and genius with voices as she produces wolf and bird language in addition to human, and listening to her read this series is nearly as entrancing as listening to her read my beloved Jacky Faber series. 

Kellgren also does a stellar job with the names and language demands of The Boy in the Suitcase, and really, either one of her titles in this category could easily win the award for her. 

But despite my delight in her work, my pick for the win is Campbell's narration of Juliet in August, partly because I liked the text itself more, but also because Campbell so fully inhabited the deceptively simple town and kept me fully present throughout the book.