Upon starting my degree I had never used any of the Macromedia programs. Two years later this still has to be one of the best books I have brought, in terms of text and product quality (high quality colour throughout). Although intially aimed at the novice user it is so clear and easy to understand it is hard to see why so many books are still not aimed at their target audience. Built up of text and colour screen shots (at every stage of each process), it teaches you the fundamentals of creating files within Flash.
Although this book is titled "How to use Flash MX and Actionscripting," the actionscripting side of the text is not very complex, simply teaching about the basics of assigning functions to buttons and editing movie controls. However at this early stage, this is all that is required.
In conclusion this book is aimed at the novice user. However unlike other books of a similar nature, this book executes its function at the highest level and should be the only book you will require to understand the first steps of the Flash learning process.