NYC parents have gained a new option for scoring that elusive date-night and last-minute backup sitter. Hello Sitter, an app founded by a local mom, launched this summer with more than 200 sitters serving Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, including the neighborhoods from Park Slope to Williamsburg.

Finding child care always presents a challenge to parents.  Finding it on short notice? As they say, fuggedaboutit. But that’s exactly the challenge that Lauren Mansell, founder and CEO of Hello Sitter, wanted to address when she set about creating the new service. Not only that, as a mom to a preschooler she knows it can be stressful to trust your kids with a stranger, so every sitter on the app is fully vetted.

Finding the perfect beach read is something of an annual hunt for book nerds and casual readers alike. And passing that literary tradition down to your kids can be a great way to stave off those endless "I'm bored" moments, not to mention keep their brain cells firing over summer vacation.

Luckily, the New York Public Library recently issued its annual Summer Reading Challenge and Contest, urging kids to read at least 20 minutes a day. Along with that came a trove of book recommendations for kids, from baby board books to early readers to teen thrillers and everything in between. There’s even a book list for grown-ups, because, hey, kids learn by watching too, right?

So whether your kids need a little prodding to pick up a book this summer, or if they’re complaining they don’t have anything new to read, check out this sampling of great book suggestions from the one of the country's largest library systems. 

If we were giving out rewards to “most improved” NYC park, surely Governors Island would blow the competition away. The trust that operates 150-acres of the island under the direction of the city continues to open new parklands, add more kid-friendly features and expand hours, making it a must-do on every New Yorker’s summer bucket list.

Summer 2016 will see the addition of an entire hill of slides, including one that will reportedly be the longest in the city at 57-feet-long, a brand-new treehouse and the debut of the city’s only “adventure playground,” a free-for-all, kids-only build and destroy space. Oh, and it is all FREE, our favorite kind of summer fun.

Governors Island opens for the season on Saturday, May 28, Memorial Day weekend and hosts its annual Family Fun Day that Sunday. Not all the features will be ready for opening day, but some will.

Here’s a breakdown on what’s new and when it will be available for family fun on this car-less isle.

If you’ve been searching for the right show to introduce your tot to theater, you can’t go wrong with Hatched. This sweet interactive children’s puppet show from Treehouse Shakers has just returned its dancing baby-animal barnyard to the NYC stage.

Playing this week at BAM in Brooklyn and next week at Alvin Ailey in Manhattan, Hatched follows a day in the life of a “just-hatched” chick, from its literal hatching forth from the egg onstage to the sun setting over the farm at day’s end.

We’ve recommended this show for first-time theatergoers in the past. But after catching it May 1 at BAM’s Fisher Hillman Studio, we wanted to share this full review with our readers.

If summertime means theme and water park fun and roller coaster thrills for your family, then you’ll want to check out what’s new for the 2016 season at some of our favorite amusement parks in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.

While the recent cool spring temps along the East Coast have put a hold on opening day for some amusement parks, others are already open for junk food eating, coaster screams and arcade fun. We found two brand-new roller coasters and more little kid friendly fare like a five-slide complex and new home for Jersey dinosaurs in our search across parks in the greater New York City area, including Coney Island’s Luna Park, and a bit beyond, like Six Flags in New Jersey and Edaville’s Thomas Land in Massachusetts to round up more than a dozen new rides, features and thrills for summer 2016.

Read on for all the details, including height requirements and expected opening dates.

Let's be honest. Raising a toddler is a handful, but raising a NYC toddler comes with its own unique challenges—and rewards—like trying to carry their tantruming little bodies up the subway stairs, but knowing they'll come out of it with some awesome values. It also means they develop some pretty distinctive NYC habits at an early age. Watching a toddler in NYC is both hilarious and hilariously frustrating, because they’re right at a crucial development phase in terms of language, basic skills and learning—and they’re doing it on full display of your building, block or, basically, the entire city.

Does your tyke display these quintessential NYC kid quirks?

Bird or dinosaur? Your kid may ask that question a lot after visiting Dinosaurs Among Us, the new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, opening Monday, March 21, on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The whole premise behind the new exhibit is that dinosaurs never really left. Instead, we can see their “evolutionary legacy” on display in the behaviors and anatomy of thousands of modern-day birds. Think of your annual turkey wishbone, birds' scaly feet with elongated toes, the aggressive, beast-like piercing call of certain species like the peacock and, of course, their egg-filled nests.

The exhibit is made up of dozens of fossils, full-scale dinosaur and bird casts, as well as display cases of eggs and nests, feathers (everywhere) and other elements to help visitors compare today's bird species with their extinct relatives, like a side-by-side display of the three-toed foot of an emu and the similar, but larger, three-toed foot of a Struthiominus altus that lived 78 million years ago in North America.

Preschool favorite Peppa Pig is making her U.S. theatrical debut in life-size puppet form as Peppa Pig’s Big Splash tours the country, hitting 90 cities, including Downtown LA this month. Our NYC Editor caught the show in New Jersey and offers us a sneak preview:

If you have a preschooler or toddler at home, you likely know all about Peppa Pig, her snorting family and their love of muddy puddles. The British-accented pink pig plays on Nick Jr., and ahem, YouTube, on a loop in many a tot’s house, entertaining kids with simple graphics and wholesome themes. You can expect the same from the musical Big Splash, including plenty of Daddy Pig antics, games involving brother George and sightings of Peppa’s friendly pals: Pedro Pony, Danny Dog and Suzy Sheep.