Details

"The Seven Voyages of Zheng He; The Real Sinbad the Sailor,” is a mid-grade (ages 10-18) biography about the 15th Century Chinese explorer, Zheng He. At the instigation of Ming Emperor Zhu Di, Zheng He built a fleet of over 300 treasure ships, some of them larger than a football field, and led them on seven expeditions to S.E. Asia, India, Arabia, and Africa. Some historians believe he may also have sailed to Australia, Europe, and the Americas sixty years before Columbus set out to discover the New World. His journeys may have been the inspiration for the Legend of Sinbad the Sailor.
Zheng He was a Muslim by birth, a Buddhist by training and, in practice, a follower of Matsu, the Chinese Goddess of the Seas. He was also exemplary in that he was able to spread the power and influence of the Ming Dynasty by peaceful means rather than through military conquest.

About Author
Don Morreale began writing in high school. He has two books in print on Buddhism in the West; Buddhist America; Centers Retreats, and Practices, John Muir Publications (1988), and The Complete Guide to Buddhist America, Shambhala Publications (1998). For several years he wrote a weekly column for the Denver Post about interesting Colorado characters which he later combined into a book entitled Cowboys, Yogis, and One-Legged Ski Bums; The Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary Coloradans, XLibris (2014). He also self-published a book of essays by his students at Kathmandu University entitled We Will Rebuild; Survivors’ Tales of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake . 
With regard to his academic credentials, Morreale has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Denver, and taught writing and public speaking over a five year period at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University in Hangzhou, China, and at Kathmandu University in Nepal in 2015. While in China, he did on-site research in Nanjing for his book on Zheng He.