Much adored children book author Maurice Sendak passed away last month at the age of 83. His legacy includes more than 100 children's books including "Where the Wild Things Are" as well as many illustrations that never made it into a book.

The Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia recently opened a yearlong exhibition to celebrate the life and work of the popular children's book author. The exhibit houses the most extensive collection of Sendak's artwork to date.

Sendak was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrants. He decided he wanted to be an illustrator after watching Walt Disney's "Fantasia" when he was 12-years-old. But he said his love for books started even earlier because it was the only entertainment he had when he was sick and bedridden for several of his childhood years. He also said that books were a good escape for him because his childhood was not a happy one. He said "The Holocaust" and having many members of his extended family perish during the horrible time exposed him to mortality and sadness too soon in life.

Sendak has won numerous awards for his work including a National Medal of the Arts. But in a 2008 New York Times article, he said that the awards and honors "never penetrated...they were like rubber bullets."

His work stole the hearts of children and adults alike because it displayed an honest dealing with the world, which made him a pioneer of a new kind of children's book that was not seen merely as children's entertainment but rather as a form of artistic expression.

The 2008 New York Times article on him has the following summing up the appeal of his work, "That Mr. Sendak fears that his work is inadequate, that he is racked with insecurity and anxiety, is no surprise. For more than 50 years that has been the hallmark of his art. The extermination of most of his relatives and millions of other Jews by the Nazis; the intrusive, unemployed immigrants who survived and crowded his parents' small apartment; his sickly childhood; his mother's dark moods; his own ever-present depression - all lurk below the surface of his work, frequently breaking through in meticulously drawn, fantastical ways."