Anne Kowalski

This is an extremely well-written book for anyone new to ActionScript. Unlike most programming books I found it very kind and gentle for those of us that don't have the programmer mindset naturally. I found most programming concepts were given plenty of explanations. It has a very friendly tone, and reading one chapter per week is not an impossible task. I've heard that most of the books by Friends of Ed are written in a similar way.

One thing I really hate doing is drawing anything in Flash. (I hate drawing on the computer, period. But having to make all sorts of graphics for a Flash project really drives me nuts.) So I found the graphics included in the starter files to be very, very helpful. It let me take my limited time and focus on the ActionScript instead of creating silly graphics.