Learn the Fundamentals of WPF Visually
With WPF, Microsoft started from scratch and built a UI framework that is more logical, powerful, and integrated than previous frameworks. But it's different from previous frameworks, and you need to understand it structure and paradigms to use it effectively.
One of the reasons WPF has such a reputation of having a steep and extensive learning curve is that we, as programmers, think that all UI frameworks are pretty much the same, just with different API classes, methods and parameters. In the case of WPF, however, this is definitely not the case. The result is that when programmers just jump from another framework into WPF without learning the basics, they're frustrated that everything seems so "hard".
The purpose of Illustrated WPF is to teach you the fundamentals and mechanics of WPF programming as quickly and simply as possible, while giving you a firm grasp of what's actually going on under the covers.