"This is a brand new craft," said Cheong-Choon Ng, the inventor of the Rainbow Loom, one of the hottest toys on the market. Children use the loom to create jewelry out of rubber bands.

The current craze for kids, Rainbow Loom bands and their many knockoffs, is surprising parents and child development experts. Cooper Volkman, 8 years old, wears loom band bracelets that he made in ...

Rainbow Loom is marketed as one of those back-to-basics, hands-on crafts that pulls kids away from the iPad — sort of like the looms for hot pads and pot holders in the 1970s that were supposed ...

the rainbow loom bands one surfaces, the actual details quickly became lost in the cacophony of rising concern. Parents scrambled to find out whether their children's loom band kits indeed ...

His Rainbow Loom YouTube channel has more than 66 videos and close to 4 million views. There are thousands of homemade videos from kids across the world on YouTube, too.

Sure enough, I stopped in for lunch to find the loom displayed on the dining room table. Bands had already been placed on the pegs, but neither the 4-year-old nor the 65-year-old knew what to do next.

But when it came to the Rainbow Loom, he was insistent. “There are like 10 people at school that don’t have them. Everyone else is into it,” said Angelo, of Naperville.

But the Rainbow Loom alone accounted for 2.9 percent of same-store sales growth last year, and Michaels sold the bracelet-making device for only six months of that period.

Pint-sized Loom-lovers were even more outraged, claiming they should be allowed to get crafty in between classes. “I think it’s horrible. We should be able to have them at least at recess ...