A system for illustrating sound and text including a book with pages having illustrations and/or text, at least some of the pages including a magnetic signature; a book holder adapted to accept the book, the book holder having a reading surface with a magnetic signature sensor, cartridge slot, a reading controller, a speaker, and a power supply; and a cartridge adapted to be inserted in the cartridge slot, the cartridge including stored audio representations related to the illustrations and/or text of the pages; wherein the magnetic signature sensory is predisposed to detect and make direct contact with the magnetic signature on the pages as they are turned by a user viewing the book, and wherein the reading controller is adapted to interact with the magnetic signature sensory to determine a given page that the user is viewing responsive to the direct contact between the magnetic signature sensor and the magnetic signature on the given page, and to retrieve audio representations and/or text stored on the cartridge corresponding to the page or pages being viewed by the user and to reproduce audible sounds related to the retrieved audio representations through the speaker for listening by the user.