SICP is known to be quite difficult - it was originally written for MIT students who also had college-level training in other math, science, and engineering sub

SICP is known to be quite difficult - it was originally written for MIT students who also had college-level training in other math, science, and engineering subjects including calculus - as I recall SICP assumes you know something about these. Most of the exercises, even the seemingly easy ones, take me immense amount of time to solve - This is not unusual for college-level problems in science and engineering. If you can solve them at all, that's a reason for pride, not discouragement. To restore your confidence, you could have a look at Brian Harvey's textbook Simply Scheme. It is intended for students from a wider range of backgrounds and does not assume a heavy science/math background.