Despite the widespread commitment of many colleges of education to advance equity and social justice using critical theories, many students exit teacher preparation programs without a tangible idea of how to enact critical theories within their classrooms. The dominant approach to fostering critical practices among preservice teachers--Multiculturalism--is limited by focusing on cosmetic shifts that maintain the status quo. As demands for social justice increase alongside shifts in the demographic composition of schools, there is an urgent need for more transformative theoretical lenses and models for teacher training that address the chasm between the ideals of critical theory and teaching practice. Multicultural literature is viewed as a potentially powerful lever for critical teaching, but a similar gap exists between preservice teachers' understanding and practice. The goal of this study is to develop preservice teachers' critical perspectives and practices to empower transformative teaching in their future classrooms. The research questions explored are: RQ 1: How do preservice teachers participating in a "Reading for Social Justice Project" in their Children's Literature course understand, value, and apply a Critical Multicultural perspective to expose and critique social issues and themes in multicultural children's literature that address issues of race, gender, and/or socioeconomic status? RQ2: How do these preservice teachers critically design, enact, and reflect on a multicultural literature-based lesson plan project? This qualitative study presents two case studies and results from analysis of 23 preservice teachers' reflections on the multi-week unit reading and teaching with resistance literature. These future teachers use Botelho and Rudman's (2009) Critical Analytical lens as a tool to unpack power, deconstruct dominant ideologies, investigate intersectionality, interrogate story closure, and aim for intersectional, agential instruction. They grappled with ways to move from examination to disruption. They expressed willingness, responsibility, and commitment to using the critical lens in their future classroom and rated the project as useful in their teacher preparation. Findings suggest this kind of project supports the use of the critical lens as a tool for interrogation, offers possibilities for using literature for social transformation, and has implications for theory, research, and practice in preservice teacher education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]