Systems and methods of creating talking books that employ photo-electronics to realize autonomous page recognition, are provided. More particularly, systems and methods are provided for employing one or more light sensing components (e.g., photoresistors, phototransistors, and photodiodes) on the pages of a book in order to recognize when a user is reading a particular page, or a pair of pages such that an audio segment associated to that page, or pair of pages, may be played. This invention also provides light sensing components that can recognize, and react to, user interactions with a talking book. Examples included playing a media segment or turning a particular LED ON for a particular action (e.g., covering an interacting light sensing component).