DENVER, CO — Post Offices and letter carriers can expect to see a number of smiling children and Harry Potter enthusiasts waiting by their mailboxes this Saturday, July 21.

 It will not be the Owl Post Office of Harry Potter but the United States Postal Service who will be making deliveries of the final book — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — on the book’s official national release date Sat., July 21, 2007.

The Postal Service is handling delivery of Harry Potter for five retailers/internet shippers shipping the books via pre-orders received from customers. Those companies include Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Walmart.com, Anderson Merchandising, and Baker & Taylor.

Post Offices and letter carriers nationwide will be delivering approximately two million of the Harry Potter books on Saturday. That includes more than 55,000 books delivered to the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

Most of the deliveries will be made in single book packages weighing about three-pounds each. Most boxes are from Amazon.com. They are colored in red and white with the words: “ATTENTION MUGGLES, DO NOT DELIVER OR OPEN BEFORE JULY 21.”

The Postal Service is not adding on any extra staff for the big Harry Potter delivery. It has done extensive communications, planning and coordination to make sure every one of the books is delivered on July 21.

“We expect to successfully deliver every Harry Potter book our Denver Post Office receives for delivery on July 21,” saysDenverPostmaster Alan Catlin. “We know many children and Harry Potter fans are counting on the magic of the Postal Service to deliver like Harry always does.“

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation, 146 million homes and businesses, six days a week. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $73 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.