Blue Pelican Java

Blue Pelican Java is a somewhat unusual high school computer science textbook. Most computer science texts will begin with a section on the history of computers followed with a flurry of definitions that are just so many words to the average student. The approach here is to first give the student some experience upon which to hang the definitions that come later. The usual practice of introducing classes and objects is deferred until the student has a firm grasp of the fundamentals (loops decision structures etc). Thus the beginning student is not overwhelmed by the simultaneous introduction of OOPs and the fundamentals. The book includes plenty of exercises (many in contest form) programming projects and a huge appendix.