The story was sweet, but the rhyming scheme did not work very well. In several places, it felt forced and clunky. This is one of those cases when I wished the editor had told the author to scrap the rhyming and just tell the story. Curiously, I think the text would have ended up being more poetic if the author had been granted that freedom.
I cannot, however, fault the illustrations at all. They are beautiful, atmospheric, and evocative. THEY are poetic.