Hi Liz,
Welcome to the group. Graham's book suggestion is a good one, plus it's for the southern hemisphere, not always the case with some books written for the northern sky. If you have a PC it might be worth investigating Stellarium:
http://www.stellarium.org/
or Cartes du Ciel:
http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/start
Both are free planetarium software and pretty good for showing what's in the sky at the moment and as the night progresses.
Cheers, Paul.