Each story is rooted in real local history and landmarks
A child discovers a hidden loom in a Marktgasse cellar that weaves stories into cloth. Each fabric tells the tale of a different family from 1640s Langenthal, when linen sailed across Europe to Spain and Portugal. To save the last thread from breaking, the child must trace the cloth's journey from the weaver's workshop to a merchant ship on the Mediterranean.
A porcelain plate from the Langenthal factory refuses to break, no matter how many times it falls. A child follows its journey backwards in time -- from a grandmother's Sunday table in the 1960s, through the hands of 950 factory workers, to a Bohemian clay pit where the kaolin was first dug -- discovering why this one plate carries the memory of an entire nation's kitchen.
Before the relief tunnel was built, the Langete floods the streets of Langenthal once more. A child must navigate the canal-like elevated pavements in a tiny boat, racing to warn the town before the water rises higher than the 1975 flood -- discovering along the way why Langenthal's streets were designed like rivers, and that sometimes a town must learn to live with its wildest neighbour.
A child meets a Cistercian monk from St. Urban's Abbey in the 13th century who is building the Waessermatten irrigation system. Together they channel water through meadows and learn to read the landscape like a living map -- discovering that patience and careful planning can transform a flood-prone valley into one of Switzerland's most fertile and beautiful landscapes.
When the clock tower of the 1808 Choufhuesi strikes an impossible thirteenth hour, doors throughout the building open to its past lives. A child wanders through a bustling cloth market, a candlelit prison cell, a dusty library, and finally a modern art gallery where the paintings have come alive -- each room revealing a different century of Langenthal's civic heart.
On a foggy night at the Eishalle Schoren, a young player sees the ghost of a championship team skating on the ice under the roofed arena. The ghost wears the jersey of the 2012 title-winning squad and has a message for the child: winning is not about the league you play in, but about the pride a town carries in its heart.
In 1857, the first train arrives in Langenthal with a great cloud of steam and a shriek of the whistle. A child climbs aboard the locomotive and rides through the decades, watching from the window as the quiet market town transforms into a bustling industrial centre -- meeting linen weavers, porcelain painters, and machine builders at every stop along the way.
A child explores the ruins of Gruenenberg Castle and awakens a medieval knight who tells the tale of the three castles that once ruled the Oberaargau. As they walk from Gruenenberg to Schnabelburg to Langenstein, the knight grows older with each castle, until they reach St. Urban's Abbey -- where the monks who quietly outlasted them all offer the knight a final bowl of soup and a place to rest.
Your child becomes the illustrated hero of the story.
Choose from local stories or 170+ other themes.
A personalized illustrated story ready in minutes.
Your child as the main character in a story set right here.
Swiss Stories require a free account. Trial stories use other themes.