What was the first book to win the Newbery Medal?

The first book to win the Newbery Medal was The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon.

The American Library Association established the Newbery Medal in 1921, and the award was inaugurated in 1922 for books published during the previous year. Van Loon's The Story of Mankind, a sweeping history of civilization written for younger readers, became the inaugural winner. It was selected through an early voting process and received 163 of 212 votes.

The medal was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher, an editor at Publishers Weekly, who wanted to encourage high-quality children's books and demonstrate that literature for young readers deserved serious recognition. It was named after John Newbery, an eighteenth-century English publisher often called the father of children's literature.

Several choices in the list are later Newbery winners rather than the first winner. Hugh Lofting's The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle won in 1923, Charles Boardman Hawes's The Dark Frigate won in 1924, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Little House in the Big Woods was never the medal's inaugural book. The Newbery remains one of the most prominent American awards for children's literature.