Hal Abelson's foreword is worth reading, if just for the footnote (about the AP CS exam that used to be based on Pascal):

   [1] Since Hal wrote this Foreword, they've switched the 
   AP exam to use Java, but the principle is the same.

or for a mind expanding classic : videos of the 1986 SICP lectures by Sussman and Ebelson - http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma... [torrents work ok]

book - http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

This is good, but I'd also add in algorithms, data structures, and basic complexity.