john,
I had similar question in mind when started with nodejs. I went about going through this interactive course which helped me gaining the confidence and hands-on.
linkedin.com/learning/node-js-essential-training/…
Post that, I read through about individual topics on internet(mostly the one posted on medium.com) to understand those better.
I didn't have the requirement to learn mongo along with it. However I am aware of mean.io which I found to be really abstracted and you don't learn node concepts so well using it.