Fuse 8 n’ Kate: When Marian Sang by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Brian Selznick

Just in time for Black History Month we’re tackling a number of firsts on our podcast. Our first Pam Muñoz Ryan book. Our first Brian Selznick book. And while this isn’t our first picture book biography, we’ve done relatively few over the years. Now imagine you’re like Kate and you’ve never seen a Brian Selznick book before. Isn’t this an ideal way to start your journey? Don’t worry, I won’t make her read Hugo Cabret next or anything (though it’s tempting). And just to spoil it all, we both adore this book. Old nonfiction picture books age so poorly sometimes but this title had some incredible backmatter, even by 2025 standards. We discuss how this book has “sepia with depth” and somehow manages not to be boring looking and how we’d love to be remembered as “fierce but famous.”

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, Audible, Amazon Music, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

Here is the interview that Brian Selznick conducted with IndieBound.org in which he alludes to the possible origins of When Marian Sang.

So this is interesting. Selznick does a technique he’d later utilize again for Hugo Cabret (and The Marvels). He sets the stage and then we get to the title page.

Check this out. You flip between these three pages and Marian looks very similar in all three. She’s almost perfectly placed on top of herself on each page.

And this sequence reminds me of Selznick’s Baby Monkey title. You know for a fact that every single one of these people is a real person. A pity there isn’t a key in the back to explain who they are.

This is Kate’s favorite illustration. It’s the image of Marian singing at the Lincoln Memorial but in an extreme close-up.

Did Selznick use a photograph as reference for this wordless two-page spread? We have no idea. What we do know is that he’s referencing young Marian with this small child standing front and center.

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Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate