4 best JavaScript or JQuery books for beginners

There are a lot of JavaScript and Jquery books on the market at the moment. It’s hard to know which books to pick-up. Many of the books on the shelves are fine for learning the basic concepts but do not leave the reader with a deep knowledge of how the JavaScript works, best practices or tips that seasoned JavaScript programmers pick up along the way. After reading and reviewing countless books, 4 books stand out of the crowd if you want to start learning JavaScript or JQuery. 

DOM Scripting 
by Jeremy Keith and Jeffery Sambells

A great project oriented introduction to modern JavaScript practice applied to the Document Object Model (DOM). DOM Scripting is a great book for beginners. It starts with a thorough crash-course on the JavaScript language before moving into a series of projects including building a dynamic image gallery. Along the way, the authors cover important issues like cross-browser compatibility, graceful degradation and re-factoring code. For those who will use JavaScript primarily to add interactive elements to websites, the book is a good starting point that also feels rewarding as you complete the projects throughout the book.

Object Oriented Javascript: Create scalable and reusable high-quality JavaScript applications and libraries 
by Stoyan Stefanov

This is my all time favorite Javascript book for beginners as well as intermediate programmers. Object Oriented JavaScript is highly interactive, teaching code through practice. The approach in Object Oriented Javascript is not through doing projects but through active experimentation and exploration of the nuances of JavaScript. If you’re looking to have a strong understanding of the how’s and why’s of JavaScript, this book is a great place to begin or a follow-up to working through DOM Scripting. 

Javascript: The Good Parts 
by Douglas Crockford

Javascript: The Good Parts is not a book for beginners. I include it in the list because it is a must-read for anybody looking to further their understanding and practice of JavaScript. I recommend reading it topically alongside one of the other beginning books. Author, Douglas Crockford is widely regarded as the JavaScript expert by many in the JavaScript community. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford focuses on imparting wisdom and best practices for working with JavaScript. If you want to write efficient scalable and maintainable code, this is the book to read.

Learning JQuery 
by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg 

Learning JQuery is the most beginner friendly and in-depth book covering the core concepts of JQuery that I have read. No prior knowledge of JQuery or JavaScript is necessary (although some familiarity with JavaScript is helpful). Throughout the book attention is paid to imparting best practices that will improve your code quality even if you already have some knowledge of JQuery or JavaScript.

See also my follow up post: JavaScript books to take your skills to the next level.