Gemma Arterton reads Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Famous Fiction) recap

Bored beside her sister, Alice follows a waistcoated White Rabbit underground and enters Wonderland. Changes of size repeatedly frustrate her attempt to reach a beautiful garden, while the creatures she meets turn lessons, manners, games, and conversation into absurd contests. She joins a race with no real rules, receives cryptic advice from a Caterpillar, encounters the violent Duchess and the vanishing Cheshire Cat, and endures an endless tea party with the Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse. In the garden she meets the tyrannical Queen of Hearts, plays chaotic croquet, and hears the Mock Turtle's account of his education. Alice then attends the Knave of Hearts' trial for stealing tarts. As the court invents evidence and procedure, she grows to full size and challenges it. When the cards attack, she awakens beside her sister and realizes that Wonderland was a dream.

Alice leaves her sister on the riverbank to follow a talking White Rabbit carrying a watch. She falls slowly down a deep shaft into a hall of locked doors. A tiny key opens a passage to a beautiful garden, but Alice is too large to enter. A bottle makes her shrink, after she has left the key out of reach, and a cake then makes her grow enormously. Distressed by the constant changes, she weeps enough to flood the hall. The returning Rabbit mistakes her for a servant and drops his fan and gloves; the fan shrinks her again. Alice falls into her own pool of tears and meets a Mouse among the birds and animals swimming there.

The soaked company reaches shore. The Mouse attempts to dry everyone with a historical lecture, while the Dodo proposes a circular race with no fixed beginning or end. When it stops, he declares everyone a winner and Alice distributes prizes. Her talk of her cat Dinah frightens the animals away. The White Rabbit then orders Alice to fetch his gloves and fan. In his house she drinks from another bottle and grows until she fills the building. The Rabbit sends Bill the Lizard down the chimney, but Alice kicks him out. Pebbles thrown through the window turn into cakes; eating one shrinks Alice enough to escape. In the woods she meets a puppy enormous in relation to her and searches for a way to regain a useful height.

A blue Caterpillar questions Alice about her unstable identity and tells her that opposite sides of his mushroom will alter her size. After experiments leave her neck stretched above the trees and mistaken for a serpent by a pigeon, she balances the mushroom pieces and approaches a small house. Inside, the Duchess, her Cook, a baby, and a grinning Cheshire Cat occupy a pepper-filled kitchen. Alice carries the violently handled baby outside, where it changes into a pig. The Cheshire Cat explains that the local inhabitants are mad and offers directions to the March Hare and the Hatter. It disappears while leaving its grin behind, and Alice chooses the March Hare's house, adjusting herself to a larger but manageable size before approaching.

Alice finds the March Hare, Hatter, and Dormouse crowded at a large tea table. Their riddles have no answers, their rules constantly shift, and the Hatter says a quarrel with Time has trapped them at six o'clock. After the Dormouse's story is repeatedly interrupted, Alice leaves and finally finds a route into the garden. There, card-shaped gardeners are painting white roses red to conceal an error. The King and Queen of Hearts arrive with their court. The Queen repeatedly demands executions and forces Alice into a croquet game played with flamingos, hedgehogs, and moving card-soldiers instead of normal equipment. The Cheshire Cat appears above the ground, creating an argument about whether a head without a body can be beheaded. Alice survives the Queen's anger as the game collapses into disorder.

The Duchess returns from custody and walks with Alice, finding morals in everything until the Queen drives her away. The Queen then sends Alice with the Gryphon to meet the Mock Turtle. The Mock Turtle gives a tearful account of his childhood, his school beneath the sea, and a curriculum built from distorted versions of ordinary subjects. He and the Gryphon describe and perform the Lobster Quadrille, then ask Alice about her adventures. Her attempts to repeat familiar verses again produce altered nonsense. Their songs and explanations are interrupted by the announcement that a trial is beginning, and the Gryphon rushes Alice back to the royal court.

The Knave of Hearts is tried for stealing the Queen's tarts, with the King acting as judge and a jury of animals struggling to write anything sensible. The Hatter, the Duchess's Cook, and Alice are called as witnesses. None supplies reliable evidence, and the court treats an unsigned poem as proof by assigning meanings it does not contain. Alice begins growing during the hearing and becomes confident enough to challenge the King's invented rules and the Queen's demand for punishment before a verdict. When the Queen orders her execution, Alice says the court is merely a pack of cards. The cards swarm over her, and she wakes beside her sister on the riverbank. She tells her sister the dream and runs home, while her sister reflects on the strange vision and Alice's future.

At the Knave of Hearts' trial, the court treats rumor, a meaningless poem, and the King's invented procedures as evidence. Having grown to her full size, Alice openly rejects the proceedings. The Queen orders her execution, but Alice declares that the court is only a pack of cards. The cards fly at her, and she wakes on the riverbank with her sister brushing fallen leaves from her face. Alice recounts the dream and runs home for tea. Her sister remains behind, imagines Wonderland and its strange inhabitants, and pictures Alice growing into an adult who will preserve the sympathy and imagination of childhood.