SICP is pretty stiff for a first text, unless you're a physicist or mathematician by vocation. Most people in CS are afraid of math.

I've heard good things about HtDP as an alternative. It too uses Scheme and is free on the web, but has less of that scary math and seems more focused on real-world issues.

Or you could just fire up something like Python and start playing around with some tiny examples. It's the best way to do things.