Depending on the goals of the learner, something with immediate visual feedback is nice. Logo/turtle graphics or Smalltalk would be good for this.
While you're not going to write my-first-blog in Logo, it's something my 5 year old can get her head around. And it's the thin edge of the lisp wedge :)
Agreed. Warren Wilkinson had an idea for a simple Lisp wrapper to SDL for this purpose (http://formlis.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/teaching-children-pr...). But it needs to be something even simpler, "Logo easy." HTML5 Canvas is actually a good system for this IMO.
While you're not going to write my-first-blog in Logo, it's something my 5 year old can get her head around. And it's the thin edge of the lisp wedge :)