A talking book is combined with a talking, animated toy figure. Each includes a sound synthesizer, a digital memory including at least some speech data to be used by the synthesizer to produce speech and a processor to control the operations of the synthesizer. Each includes a speaker coupled with the synthesizer to actually produce speech and other sounds. The book includes two outer covers and two inner pages, each with some printing. Depressible switches are provided on the inner covers to cue the processor to generate sounds appropriate to the print near the depressed cover switch. Switches in a hinge pin received in hinge rings provided each cover and page to join the covers and pages together are depressed by cam surfaces inside the ring of the front cover and each page and signal, the processor the configuration of the book. In addition to generating its own speech, the book processor transmits a control signal to the processor of the toy figure cuing that processor to generate control signals to generate the appropriate sound and/or sound by the figure synthesizer and/or animation control signals to animate the toy figure. Thus, actions of the toy figure are coordinated with the information provided in the book.