Correctional educators have discovered common thinking and behavioral errors which impede pro-social adjustment. In order for the inmate student to hope to experience societal reintegration, these errors must be detected and corrected. The program described herein--a consequential thinking seminar called ABLE MINDS--has as its goals: 1) The shifting of offenders' self-identification from pro-criminal to pro-social and 2) The teaching of concrete problem-solving skills. Drawing on decades of instruction in cognitive thinking and pre-release preparation to prisoners, the author--a Librarian at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Norfolk--discusses the use of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" in the context of ABLE MINDS to teach prisoners a method of self-restraint predicated on good human character.