Hailed by the Times as "hugely entertaining", award-winning narrator Alison Larkin selects fairytales of strong, brave, independent, at times irreverent girls and women who take charge of their lives, go on their own adventures, rescue themselves, and sometimes even save the men they love.

These are not stories of helpless females shut up in high towers waiting around for a handsome man to rescue them while they sleep for years or brush their golden hair a lot. These heroines have far more to distinguish them than the fact that they (sometimes) end up married to a prince.

Selected and introduced by Alison Larkin, the stories are:

"The Snow Queen", "Molly Whuppie and the Double-faced Giant", "A Pottle of Brains", "Cap o' Rushes", "Hansel and Gretel", "Mr. Fox", "Clever Grethel", "Kari Woodengown", "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", "Felicia and the Pot of Pinks", "The Iron Stove", "The Hedley Kow", "The Six Sillies", "Baba Yaga", "The Old Woman in the Woods", "The Idle Spinner", "The Twelve Brothers", "Frederick and Catherine", "Little Red Cap", and "Beauty and the Beast."

Award-winning audio-book narrator, comedienne, and best-selling author of The English American Alison Larkin is also a classically trained actress who has appeared on Broadway with the Royal National Theater and off-Broadway with the Royal Shakespeare Company.