The Terribly Friendly Fox made us laugh the first time we read it. It made us laugh the fourth time too.
This is a book with two voices. The text is warm and sincere, the voice of a fox welcoming himself to a forest party. The illustrations, by Ellie Snowdon, are saying something else. The fox is clearly about to eat everyone he meets.
Children notice the gap faster than adults do. An adult reads the first spread and thinks “how lovely, a friendly fox.” A child looks at the pictures and says, with complete confidence, that the fox is going to eat the mouse. The book is drawing attention to the fact that the pictures are information, not decoration.
Susannah Lloyd writes the sincere narration on purpose. The whole thing falls apart if the text leaks the joke, and Lloyd holds the line all the way through. The book is funnier because nobody in the text seems aware of what is happening.
We pack The Terribly Friendly Fox into class sets where we think the teacher will have fun reading it aloud. The comedy works best out loud.