An Olympic ath­lete. A nov­el­ist. A wild­ly suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur. How does one fam­i­ly pro­duce sib­lings of such dis­parate but remark­able suc­cess? In The Fam­i­ly Dynam­ic: Inside the Mys­ter­ies of Sib­ling Suc­cess, Susan Domi­nus offers inti­mate his­to­ries of fam­i­lies in which numer­ous sib­lings have lived lives of great achieve­ment. Sev­er­al Jew­ish fam­i­lies’ sto­ries are promi­nent­ly woven through­out, with details about the famous Emanuels (Rahm, Ari, and Ezekiel); the Epsteins (whose ranks include base­ball man­age­ment leg­end Theo Epstein, his sis­ter, Anya Epstein, a suc­cess­ful tele­vi­sion showrun­ner, and their grand­fa­ther, Julius, one of the writ­ers of Casablan­ca); and the Wasser­steins (the play­wright Wendy, the influ­en­tial financier Bruce, and San­dra, a trail­blaz­ing female exec­u­tive), among oth­ers. The book is inter­est­ed in how par­ents inspire their chil­dren to dream big, while also tak­ing on, with hon­esty, some of the chal­lenges that come with com­pe­ti­tion and ambi­tion. The Fam­i­ly Dynam­ic address­es how much par­ents can (and can’t) do to inspire their chil­dren to aim high, alter­nat­ing chap­ters of fam­i­ly nar­ra­tives with chap­ters of social sci­ence that enlighten.