Toys "R" Us Inc. plans an online and bricks-and-mortar push in China, its top executive said, in a bet that a growing middle class will see play time as increasing essential.

To ply a market where many parents would sooner buy their children books than Barbies, the retailer is stocking up on toy microscopes, building blocks and other educational toys to win Chinese parents over.

The Wayne, N.J., company is launching online sales in China this week and plans to double its stores from a current 30 in the next few years, said Chief Executive Jerry Storch in an interview. He declined to give a time frame for the store expansion.

"There's a huge opportunity waiting in China and we have to be part of it," Mr. Storch said.

China's increasingly affluent consumers are making sure their children have plenty to play with. Sales growth in the toy market there rose 18% to nearly 54 billion yuan ($8.58 billion) in 2011, up from a year earlier, according to market research company Euromonitor International