Harry Potter. A hero of children's literature?

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,1, University of Bonn (Bonner Zentrum für Lehrerbildung), language: English, abstract: J.K. Rowling started her series as a story for children but is her protagonist, to whom many refer to as hero, really a hero and can the Harry Potter series be seen as children's literature? This question will be answered in this work with firstly looking at the characteristics of children's literature and if Rowling used them in her novels or not with a closer look on Rowling's plot and setting as well as her representation of love, death, and trauma. Rowling places her story in a boarding school with dangerous and unknown animals and creatures and her protagonists are wizards. Her main protagonists an eleven-year-old orphaned boy who must live with his miserable relatives until he discovers that he must fulfil a greater destiny. Furthermore, the endings of her books will be analyzed whether they are closed or open because although she knew that the series should consists of seven novels in total, she did not know how successful her novels might be and if she will get the opportunity to write more books. According to that, the endings will also be examined on whether they have happy endings or not since they picture different outlooks on the story due to the plot that is set up by Rowling.