Learning InDesign 5 from scratch on Mac OSX 10.6.   All is fine, but

when tried to make a Book got  serious problems with creating TOC even by following the instructions in Help to my best ability.

The situation is – when  I set TOC by the manual and click  on the page, just a blank text box appears displaying only the title I gave to  TOC ( "THE  Book contents") but nothing else!
I could make  TOC by hand but want to learn how to make InDesign to do this.

The book consist  of 3 chapters, TOC page and Index page properly saved as .indd documents entered in a "My new book" document I’ve created.

They are properly ordered and  checked and are seen in this order:
- TOC page
-Ch 01 
-Ch 02
-Ch 03
-Index page

TOC page and Index page are the same dimensions as Chapter pages, in  TOC page the page numbering is removed from its Master because I need TOC to be just 1 page. 
The page numbering starts at Ch 01 on the right page. From Ch 01 to end of Ch 03 are 50 pages of text and all are  properly numbered from 1 to 50 exactly as expected.

Here are some details about my attempt in settings of TOC following the Help manual:

I opened Table of content window  where made these settings: 
-TOC style is created and selected as per instructions in Help manual 
-  set title: "THE  Book contents"
- Styles in Table of content box: entered 2 styles named respectively "Text Body" and "Plain Body"-they are practically identical.

In box Style:  entered "Text Body"-also tried   with "Plain Body"  – no success.
In  "Page number" entered "after entry".

In "Between entry  to number" I left default -a single tab, Style – tried with "none" and "Text Body" – no success.
Option "Sort entries in alphabetical order" – either unchecked or checked- no success.
Option "levels" – tried at different settings-2 −4-5 no success.
Option "include book documents" – checked or unchecked produces nothing.
Option "Numbered paragraphs"   set to "Include numbers only" and tried other options but no success.
(actually I don’t really understand how exactly  this option  works…)

Now when I hit OK, can see bar moving and displaying  Ch1,Ch2,Ch3 and Index which indicates InDesign does something but the result is not good – just this blank text box with only name "THE  Book contents" which I’ve entered but nothing else.

Can someone with good understanding of InDesign 5, please, direct in plain English thru exact steps I have to do and  get real TOC?
 Thanks in advance!

E.