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Molly,
Your flatwater kayaking experience will come in handy, but paddling whitewater introduces several inescapable complexities. Go out with someone with experience who can help you identify eddies, channels, pillows, standing waves, rocks, and strainers - who can assure that you are properly outfitted and teach you what to do if you end up flipping in a rapid. Practice peel outs and eddy turns on both sides using a couple of extremely forgiving eddies (at first). Pre-COVID, the annual VPC Novice Clinic covered all this, and more.
I like Tom Foster's book: Catch Every Eddy, Surf Every Wave as a playboat primer.
One place to find easy whitewater when most other rivers are too low is the section of the Missisquoi River behind The Abbey Pub and Restaurant (https://www.theabbeyrestaurant.net/). I have only run the section once, so I forget exactly which side of the Kane Rd. bridge in North Sheldon we put-in from. Go on the restaurant website - their homepage has a picture of the rapids I'm talking about. Then keep posting here to see if you can rouse anybody to meet you there for the run.
For the take-out, I remember we took out above the VT105 bridge in Sheldon Junction, bought a creemee there, and then shuttled back upstream to the car by bicycle on the rail trail.
