How do you find decodable books your child can actually read?

A decodable book uses only the patterns a reader has already been taught, so a child can sound out the pages instead of guessing at them. The trouble is finding ones at the right stage that a child will still want to read.

Where do yours come from: your library, a tutor's shelf, printable sets, a series your reader liked? How do you tell whether a book is truly at your child's stage, and what did you do when the only decodable books you could find were dull?

If you are just starting, our free decodable word lists show which words belong to each stage, which makes it easier to judge a book before you buy it. But the best answer here is each other's, so tell us what worked.