Frankly, as someone who does nothing but Flash work and is now teaching it, I would not recommend this book. It's basically a more expensive and slightly better organized version of the manual that comes with Flash. In a few cases where I tried to apply the information given (using forms), the info was actually faulty or incomplete and led to frustration rather than enlightenment. And this is from someone who knows action script very very well! Essentially, there are two books that stand out for me. For folks who want to learn Flash design and animation basics - Hillman Curtis' Flash Web Design is the best. For those who wish to learn action script, nothing can beat Flash 4 Magic. Both have real world examples and source files to back them up.