Hello!
I m a french high school teacher, and actually we use for our introduction to computing system in in the classroom of Terminale a very interesting french book (but it is writting in English!!) , named From Transistor to Computer, wrote by Claude Timsit and Soraya Zertal and edited by Hermann.
It's an amazing book, because it use spreadsheet to presente a very simple (but functionnal) processor!
I think it could be a good introduction to your more complexe book!
http://www.prism.uvsq.fr/~timsit/fromtransistortocomputer2/