Well, I'm in a similar situation, introducing a colleague to Perl so he can help us out on a project we are working on. When I've got the time to work with him, we are doing some hands-on type stuff, geared mostly at what we will need him to do (very specific task of updating several hundred Perl scripts). But I also gave him a copy of the llama book and suggested he work through it on his own. He's also signing up for a the basic Perl class that Sun offers. But, as others have mentioned, I highly recommend the llama book as a good, basic introduction.