%%wppa%% %%album=5%% shows the content of album 5. This may be photos or sub-albums or both.
%%wppa%% %%cover=5%% will show the cover of album 5 only
If you want to see the covers of several albums, set their parent to a mother album and display the content of that mother album.
The albums that have their parent set to —separate— will not appear in the general display (%%wppa%% only). They can only be reached with the actual album number like: %%wppa%% %%cover=..%% or %%wppa%% %%album=..%%)
So if you want a display of a set of album covers that do not appear anywhere else, display their parents content (%%wppa%% %%album=..%%) while that parents parent is set to —separate—.
For more information see this documentation page.
Once you know how it works, you will see that it is quite straight forward and easy.