WORCESTER - A new exhibition based on the picture-book art of Ed Emberley opens Nov. 16 at Worcester Art Museum. If you think the show is just for children, however, you’d be drawing the wrong conclusion, so to speak.

“There’s plenty of great stuff for kids and they’re going to love it,” Boston artist Caleb Neelon, the show’s guest co-curator, said. “But the secret about it is it’s really not just for kids but also for 40-year-olds like me who grew up with his stuff. It’s for the Ed superfans.”

And those superfans, it seems, are legion.

Emberley, the Caldecott Award Medal-winning author/illustrator of more than 100 books, including “Go Away Green Monster” and “Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals,” has been publishing picture books for more than 60 years. “He has produced an astonishing array of books over the course of those six decades.” Katrina Stacy, WAM’s associate curator of education and show co-curator, said. “Because of the sheer length and depth of his career, children, parents and grandparents all remember or have had experiences with his books.”

To teachers and children’s librarians, Emberley is somewhat of a rock star. Especially beloved is his engagingly interactive “Go Away Big Green Monster,” for which kids get to enthusiastically shout out the title at key points in the story. “It’s a staple because it’s not a scary monster book really,” Jennifer Rosenberg, youth services branch manager for the Worcester Public Library, said. “You can read it at Halloween to any age group because it doesn’t have a scary factor. The kids really love it.”

The show’s title, “KAHBAHBLOOOM,” styled with all-capital letters and multiple O’s, comes from Emberley’s 1967 Caldecott-winning book “Drummer Hoff.” It is the next-to-last page spread in the book where the cannon, which was being loaded by army men throughout the woodcut-adorned pages of the story, finally fires. “The museum felt the word is expressive of Emberley’s working style - explosive, exploratory and full of color and expression,” Stacy said.

Because Emberley’s work is recognized by such a wide range of generations, curators took care to include something for all ages in the exhibition. “We have included everything from special labeling to more playful interactive experiences,” Stacy said.

“KAHBAHBLOOOM: The Art and Storytelling of Ed Emberley” is the 85-year-old artist’s first museum show. “He’s from an era when children’s books and illustration were over here and fine art was something else over there and the two didn’t really cross so much,” Neelon said. Recently, that divide has been disappearing and museums have begun to host shows of the best work in the field.

“Picture-book art has a long history as an art form and already is being recognized as something that’s important for art museums,” Adam Rozan, WAM’s director of audience engagement, said. “Ed Emberley’s art needs to be and deserves to be inside this institution with all the other great works of art on display.”

A picture-book art show also fits in with WAM’s ongoing efforts to include more families among its visitor base. “I think museum visitors will also feel the tides shifting at WAM,” Stacy said. “There is an overall sense of welcomeness to families in this exhibition like I haven’t quite seen before.”

When Neelon was a kid, Emberley’s “Big Green Drawing Book,” part of an extensive and hugely popular series of engagingly simple how-to-draw books, was a big influenced on him, but he didn’t quite realize just how big until he was about 30 and had a chance to reconnect with Emberley’s work. That chance came when Neelon, who is a writer as well as an artist, did a magazine story for a national art magazine based in Los Angeles.

“We were throwing out some names for a profile and someone mentioned Ed Emberley,” Neelon said. “I hadn’t heard his name in quite a while and I was, like, ‘I love those books. They’re incredible and they’ve had a huge impact.’ It turned out that he lives in Ipswich and I was the guy who lived the closest so I got the story.”

After that story, Neelon worked with Emberley on a show of his work in Los Angeles and then on a project at Boston Children’s Hospital. From that, a retrospective book of his work, which Neelon co-authored with famed designer Todd Oldham, followed. The WAM connection came about when a discussion with Rozan about other topics eventually turned to Neelon’s now-long association with Emberley, with whom he had become friends. “Adam said ‘Has there been a retrospective in the works in a museum context?' and I said ‘Not yet but that’s sort of the next idea’ and that set the wheels in motion,” Neelon said.

Even the superfans who have seen all of Emberley’s work will find surprises in the show. Many pieces are works that were never intended to be seen by the public. They were not created to be framed and hung on a wall. Rather, they were production drawings for the books, and the books were always the final goal for Emberley.

“A lot of the artwork will have paint marks and things that have been cut out and changed, or pencil markings from the printing production process like ‘this should go over here’ or ‘20 percent red’ or something like that,” Neelon said. “They were made in order to produce the books, so that’s part of their beautiful charm in a way. You’re looking at something that’s behind the scenes.”

Don’t expect to see the same style from piece to piece, either. “He was restless and creative and curious and would try any style,” Neelon said. “He wasn’t somebody who found something that worked and stayed in that lane forever.”

Instead, if a book did well and people wanted more of it, because this was how he made his living, those styles would get carried over into other books. “But some that weren’t as successful were amazing in terms of their style and they might be totally unknown now,” he said. Of Emberley’s more than 100 books, perhaps 15 to 20 are in print, he said.

The casualties included some of his best artwork, including “Suppose You Met A Witch,” which Emberley illustrated for English novelist and poet Ian Serraillier. Emberley had just won the Caldecott and “he was working on this real virtuoso, 20-minute guitar solo kind of book that took him about three years,” Neelon said. “His publisher wanted something and he thought of a book about drawing animals as something he could do quickly and get it out there. The ‘Big Drawing Book of Animals’ sold north of a million and ‘Suppose You Met a Witch,’ which is incredible, sold 10,000 copies and went out of print.”

Work from “Witch” will be among several lesser-known pieces in the exhibition. “Part of what’s fun about doing this show is even a hardcore fan of Ed Emberley is going to see stuff they’ve never seen before, guaranteed,” Neelon said.

To prepare for the show Neelon returned to Emberley’s Ipswich studio, a space as unassuming as Neelon says the man is himself. The artwork for the WAM show as well as previous shows and the Oldham/Neelon book all came out of one room, a little upstairs space in Emberley’s old, Colonial-era house.

“There’s this one, little, not terribly impressive sized studio room, basically a kids’ bedroom, that’s been used as a studio and has all the art in it,” he said. “It’s just this magical room that, every time I went through it, new treasures would appear. That’s sort of still the case. I still have no doubt that after this show I’m going to find something new up there. It just keeps giving, that room.”

An opening reception for “KAHBAHBLOOOM: The Art and Storytelling of Ed Emberley” will be 5 to 8 p.m. Nov. 17. The event includes live music, light refreshments and a cash bar. Free with museum admission, and free for all college students.

Also, Ed Emberley Family Weekend will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 19 and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 20 Weekend activities include art making, art cart activities, tours and more. Free with museum admission.