Bear Bibeault

JQuery in Action has hands on exercises to teach the framework. There's a more recent version, but this is the one I first learned on.

The jQuery online documentation is good enough you can rely on it instead of the book for the most part. Still, it's a good introduction.

A well paced tutorial on core jquery with introduction to jquery-UI (latter is a fast-moving target!)

A practical book which explains its code thoroughly. I particularly appreciate the way it describes the regular JavaScript way before teaching the jQuery way -- this makes it useful for learning more about JavaScript, too. Also contains a good appendix about JavaScript which is worth a read in and of itself. Please note I haven't read the entire book, just selected chapters. An easy book to jump around in.