Chemistry students should learn not only the key concepts and processes of the discipline but also how they arise, are established, and develop over time. Undergraduate programs for chemistry teachers seldom include training in the history of chemistry to prepare future teachers to put concepts in a historical context. In schools, atom and atomic structure are usually related to the history of chemistry. Most textbooks introduce the atomic models through historical analogies, which are often partly implicit or inaccurate. Chemistry teachers need to deal the best they can with textbooks and the analogies they include. This study aims to determine whether Mozambican preservice chemistry teachers attending the final year of their undergraduate chemistry teacher education program can assess the potential and limitations of analogies about the atom that are included in secondary school chemistry textbooks of their home country. Seventeen preservice chemistry teachers from two Mozambican universities were interviewed on two analogies in school textbooks. Results suggest that interviewees could not identify the limitations of the analogies, possibly because of their lack of knowledge of both analogies as an educational tool and the historical evolution of the models for the atom. Using analogies for teaching should be included in Chemical Education courses, and selected history of chemistry issues should be introduced in undergraduate teacher education programs, from both historical content and methodological points of view. Including these issues would better equip preservice teachers to deal with historical analogical models of the atom when they become professional teachers.