You could try starting with "How to Design Programs" at http://htdp.org http://htdp.org (or buy the dead tree version). That book has been very helpful for some

You could try starting with "How to Design Programs" at http://htdp.org http://htdp.org (or buy the dead tree version). That book has been very helpful for some people. The programming language environment used in HTDP can be downloaded from http://racket-lang.org http://racket-lang.org. If you'd prefer Python, a real gem of a book is Core Python Programming by Westley Chun. Python btw, is an excellent choice for a first programming language.