It is rare that a first-rate museum show acknowledges and appeals to both children and adults. “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak,” a magical retrospective which opens tomorrow at the Jewish Museum, does just that. But then, Maurice Sendak – children’s book author, illustrator, and writer of librettos; graphic, set, and costume designer – has been doing that for decades. Mr. Sendak has the uncanny ability to understand the complex realm of childhood, a realm in which dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and fears all merge; in which adults can be frighteningly big and monstrous, goofy and capricious, or too “other,” solemn, or set in their ways to be taken seriously.

Though it is missing some key works, this exhibition still enthralls. It runs chronologically and includes 112 original drawings, including sketches and story boards that show the artist’s working process and his ability to orchestrate a page. It makes clear, with dazzling, light-filled illustrations (qualities that do not always translate to the medium of the printed book) what a master draftsman Mr. Sendak is. His wonderfully perverse yet genuinely amiable works recall illustrative traditions that go back to the Northern artists Durer, Bruegel, and Hans Baldung Grien; the Romanticists Blake and Church; and the Modernists Daumier, Windsor McCay, and Balthus.

The realm of visual art, which is generally devoted to the exploration of mature themes through poetic language, is more often than not beyond a child’s grasp. And most artworks made for children – be they illustrations, cartoons, or movies – either speak only to the child or include asides meant only for grown-ups. Either way, they leave adults feeling as if we are on the outside looking in.

Mr. Sendak creates an unusual middle ground – at once straightforward and mystical, in which child and adult, the real world and the imagined meet. Wherever there is beauty, magic, and make-believe (and it is everywhere in Mr. Sendak’s work), there is also the recognition that danger, terror, and death can come with the unknown – that something not-quite-right may lurk on the page. When threat is not so blatant – as in the softly rendered yet distorted landscapes of “Dear Mili” (1988) – it is felt in grotesque shadows, the nervous quiver of the lines, the look on an adult’s face, the contorted gesture of a hand, or the rustle of vegetation.

Mr. Sendak, born in 1928 in Brooklyn to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, was first influenced by Disney’s “Fantasia” and Mickey Mouse. At 20, he and his brother were making beautifully inventive, mechanical wooden toys based on fairy tales. Though F.A.O. Schwarz rejected them, they impressed someone enough that the company offered him a job building models for store windows. While working there he studied at the Art Students League, and by 1950 he was given a chance – through the store’s children’s book department – to illustrate his first children’s book. By 1952, with the publication of Ruth Kraus’s classic “A Hole Is To Dig” (1952) (not on view at the Jewish Museum), Mr. Sendak was a recognized illustrator.

Even in his earliest works, it is evident Mr. Sendak honors children as individuals. He does so by telling them the truth – not to disturb them, but to be frank and empathetic. By the mid-1950s, the characters in his stories were angry, unhappy, misunderstood, or afraid. They spend time alone – lost or dreaming. In time, they become body-conscious: His boys (surprise!) have penises; his girls, vaginas; his animals, when seen from behind, have anuses. His rocks, trees, and furniture (meticulously detailed yet always on the verge of personification) are as creepy and alive as they are comforting and reassuring – at times resembling the folds of a mother’s skirt.

As his career went on, the artist continued to open up difficult subjects that might otherwise be left alone – subjects other American authors of children’s books shunned. In his books, Mr. Sendak explores emotions children feel every day: the rejection and isolation that comes with being sent to bed without your supper, as in his masterpiece, “Where the Wild Things Are” (1963); the fear of what goes bump in the night and of being cooked by a jolly, fat baker and eaten, as in “In the Night Kitchen” (1970); or the trauma of depression and kidnapping “Outside Over There” (1981). Yet he also grapples with much more global themes: homelessness (“We Are All in the Dumps With Jack and Guy,” 1993); war (“Dear Mili,” an adaptation of Wilhelm Grimm’s 1816 story); and the Holocaust, a recurring theme dealt with head-on in his book “Brundibar” (2003).

The last gallery at the Jewish Museum is devoted to “Brundibar” which is based on Hans Krasa’s 1938 opera, originally performed by young inmates at Terezin, a Jewish concentration camp. Mr. Sendak not only illustrated the children’s book but designed sets and costumes for the opera, which was adapted by Tony Kushner. The illustrations are moving and poignant: dead children, reaching for their grieving mothers, are being carried away by black birds. Yet here – and, as far as I can tell, nowhere else – Mr. Sendak risks being ham-fisted and allegorical.

And it was also here, at the end of the exhibition, that the retrospective began to seem a little thin. Carried as much by theater sets, costumes, oversized stuffed creatures, and videos as by book illustrations, it can at times resemble a window display, theme park, or Broadway show. The exhibition includes only one early work – “Where the Wild Horses Are,” an unpublished book from 1955 that was a precursor to “Where the Wild Things Are”) – then jumps immediately to 1960.

Mr. Sendak made many early forays into art during the 1940s and 1950s – the illustrations, books, paintings, drawings, and toys – some of which were very accomplished. By focusing almost entirely on works with Jewish or children’s themes, the show ignores the artist’s truly formative years. It also disregards the adult, erotic side of the artist, including his masterful illustrations for Herman Melville’s “Pierre, or the Ambiguities” (1995); Henrich von Kleist’s sadomasochistic play “Penthesilea” (1998); and James Marshall’s “Swine Lake” (1998).

On the other hand, the Museum has provided visitors with a carpeted area called “Max’s Reading Room.” Inspired by the line, “That very night in Max’s room a forest grew,” from “Where the Wild Things Are,” the room, decorated with trees and a moon-filled window and lit by a fluttering, leafy-blue light, is strewn with fantastical pillows and Mr. Sendak’s children’s books. Amid all the distractions, it is wonderful to have this place for the finished works themselves.

Despite its shortcomings, I really loved “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak.” I share the sentiments of Mr. Sendak’s hero Max, who, having been crowned “king of all wild things,” cries out, “let the wild rumpus start!”

April 15 through August 14 (The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, 212-423-3232).