The present invention provides systems and methods of creating talking books that employ photo-electronics for autonomous page recognition. More particularly, this invention relates to systems and methods for employing one or more light sensing components, such as photoresistors, phototransistors, and photodiodes, on the pages of a book in order to recognize when a page is being read by a user so that an audio segment associated to the page, or pair of pages, that is being read by the user may be played. This invention also relates to employing light sensing components that can recognize and react user interactions with a talking book. Examples of a reaction would be to play a media segment for a particular action or to turn ON a particular LED.