I've just played with Backbone.js myself, though I have shared your frustration with getting the hang of it, and the quality of available tutorials and examples.
I've learned to mostly get the hang of it after repeated references to the official docs and the todo app. I think part of the difficulty is its lack of rigidity -- Backbone.js leaves quite a bit up to conventions, or the developer.
I've learned to mostly get the hang of it after repeated references to the official docs and the todo app. I think part of the difficulty is its lack of rigidity -- Backbone.js leaves quite a bit up to conventions, or the developer.