If All the World Were Paper Lyrics
A world made of paper, a sea of ink and trees growing bread and cheese. It sounds wonderful until you notice the problem in the last line: there would be nothing to drink.
If All the World Were Paper
If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we do for drink?
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/if-all-the-world-were-paper/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Sung
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does If All the World Were Paper Mean?
The rhyme is a what-if game. If the whole world turned into paper, the sea into ink and the trees into bread and cheese, there would be plenty to write on and plenty to eat. But with the sea turned to ink, what would anyone drink? It is a joke about a dream that has not been thought through.
History and Origin
Walter Crane set the rhyme to music in The Baby's Bouquet (1878), a picture book of songs with his own color illustrations. His page has two more verses about grown-up matters, so we give the first verse, which is the one most families know. A rhyme that starts "If all the world were apple pie" uses the same idea with different foods.
Learning Activities
- What if? take turns finishing the line "If all the world were..." and working out what would go wrong.
- Paper world: make a little scene from paper, with a blue paper sea.
- Food trees: draw a tree that grows your child's favorite food.