Learning jQuery

I keep running into the problem of wanting (or a client wanting) animation/slide show/interactivity on my websites and therefore needing javascript. So, I have been told that jQuery is the way to go. Unfortunately I am feeling like I need a bit more knowledge before I can start using this. I found the website to be a bit too advanced for plug and play. The good news is I found this site (http://www.elated.com/articles/cat/javascript/) and it seems to break down using jQuery into segmented tutorials. Hurray! And so the web development continues…